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All unhappy families may indeed be unhappy in their own ways, but one thing they have in common is that Christmas is a disaster—even if their last name is Windsor.
The royal family’s festive plans were sent into a tailspin this week by Harry and Meghan’s shock announcement that they won’t be attending Sandringham this year.
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“The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are looking forward to extended family time towards the end of this month,” Buckingham Palace's official statement read. “Having spent the last two Christmases at Sandringham, Their Royal Highnesses will spend the holiday this year, as a new family, with the Duchess’ mother Doria Ragland.
"This decision is in line with precedent set previously by other members of the Royal Family, and has the support of Her Majesty The Queen.”
Whatever the politic wording from Buckingham Palace, Harry and William's continued rift is the cause of the Harry and Meghan no-show, a source told Us Weekly. “Harry and Meghan are having a small Christmas with just immediate family instead of spending it at Sandringham,” a source told the publication. “The rift between William and Harry is one of the main reasons behind their decision.”
The palace may be keen to emphasize that Harry and Meghan’s decision to skip the family Christmas “has the support” of Her Majesty.
But there is little doubt that she would rather Harry, Meghan and her newest grandson, Archie, were there, not least because the worst-kept secret in royal circles is that it is widely considered a miracle that Prince Philip, despite a series of health scares, still walks the earth at the age of 98.
“The Queen is a very family-oriented person, and she will be saddened not to have all the family around her, especially given Philip’s age,” an old friend of H.M. tells The Daily Beast. “But she is also indulgent, especially towards Harry, and if he said he wanted to do something else, she wouldn’t stand in his way. She is aware he has had a very tough year.”
Indeed, one well-place source says that much of the tumult of recent months has been driven by Harry’s emotional difficulties rather than any impetuosity on the part of Meghan.
“Harry is very up-and-downy at the moment,” said one source, adding that Meghan appears to be much more evenly balanced than is perhaps sometimes portrayed.
In his recent interview, Harry did not actually specifically say he was back in therapy, but suggested it. Subtle hints have been dropped that Harry is receiving counseling; an official source said as much to Valentine Low, royal correspondent at The Times of London, in the wake of Harry’s ITV interview.
To understand the importance of Harry and Meghan's refusal to attend, consider this: Only once in his life has Harry not spent Christmas with his grandmother, and that was in 2012 when he was serving in Afghanistan.
William and Kate have skipped Christmas with the Queen before to spend it with Kate’s family, but, unlike them, Meghan does not have a big, local family they want to hang out with.
As we know, relations with her father aren't great, and in an interview on Radio 4 shortly after Christmas 2017, Harry described how Meghan had loved the experience of a Sandringham Christmas, saying for her it was like discovering the family she had “never had.”
The Sun suggested Harry and Meghan could spend Christmas with Meghan’s mum Doria at their home in Windsor, or in Los Angeles where she lives. If they spend it in Britain, it’s a massive F.U. to the wider royal family in general (especially as they didn’t take up the chance of a royal vacay in Balmoral this year) but particularly to Harry’s brother William. The Sun also reported that they could be headed to Botswana for a safari.
Britain’s royal family has doggedly spent the last 20 years building a narrative of a family that has overcome and risen above the great trauma of Diana’s death by leaning on and supporting each other.
Central to that carefully constructed story were the bereaved brothers. As they walked behind her coffin through the flower-strewn streets of London, the message was clear; no matter what might happen, these two would always have each other.
Now, however, and contrary to all expectations, a bitter, internecine war between Diana’s boys has erupted, triggered by all accounts, by an argument over how long Harry should have dated Meghan before marrying her.
Unbelievably, from this insignificant seed, a great forest of woe has sprung, in which several members of the royal family could easily become lost for several years.
The dangerous thing is that Harry and Meghan seem not to care anymore. They have done little to hide their contempt for the rest of their family in the announcement this week that they would not be celebrating Christmas at Sandringham with the rest of the royal family including the Queen (94), Prince Philip (98), Prince William, and Kate Middleton.
Harry recently confirmed the existence of a rift at the heart of the younger generation of the royal family when he told ITV's Tom Bradby that he and his brother had grown apart, were on “different paths” and had “good days and bad days.”
A war of briefed and counter-briefed words ensued and then, last weekend, at two separate events, the brothers icily ignored each other.
The one narrow window of hope that this crisis can be downplayed comes from the aforementioned fact that Kate and William ducked out in 2012, hightailing it to Kate’s parents’ place instead for a less formal festive affair. That has been mentioned a lot as a rationalizing coda to the reporting around Harry and Meghan’s no-show this year.
Even though Kate and William had been together for years and there wasn’t a hint of any kind of rift in the family, it was still quite controversial.
If there is one thing the British people still expect of the royal family it is this annual ritual in which the royals play the part of the idealized Christian family unit, making their happy, unified walk to church on Christmas morning so the rest of us don’t have to.
With Harry and Meghan taking a six-week break from royal duties, starting this weekend, one could of course quite understand why they wouldn’t want to have the pressure of a very public family Christmas hanging over them while they are trying to reset their lives.
But the path of least resistance might have been to go along with it, especially if those rumors that they are planning to spend Christmas Day with Meghan’s mother, Doria, at their home in Windsor prove to be correct. God forbid a photograph of them ambling aimlessly around Windsor Great Park should appear, published alongside one of the family greeting the peasant masses at Sandringham.
The real issue here remains unresolved—Harry and William’s continued rift. If the brothers don’t confront and deal with it, expect it to scupper more unifying royal family gatherings in 2020.
