I just read through The Royalist’s lengthy Substack rant about With Love, Meghan’s holiday special. Every glance, every cutaway, every conversational pause within the special is apparently loaded with anger, resentment, hatred and lies. Tom Sykes cannot believe that Meghan would dare mention her children within the special but not put the children on camera. What would be the point of that? Sykes also insists that everyone knows what the kids look like, so why would they need to appear on their mom’s show? And if they did appear, Sykes would have ranted about how Meghan doesn’t value privacy and she is monetizing her children. I guess my point is that it’s always going to be something with these people, and they’re ready 24-7 to whip themselves into a frenzy about something, anything involving the Sussexes.

Well, at least there’s some pushback from Team Sussex. People Magazine had an exclusive about how Harry and Meghan always operate as a team, regardless of the royalists’ years-long attempts to create wedge issues and melodrama.

Meghan Markle’s latest installment of her Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration offers a rare window into how she and Prince Harry are creating Christmas traditions in Montecito, Calif. Throughout the special, which premieres Dec. 3, Meghan, 44, leans into building family rituals for the couple’s children, Prince Archie, 6 and Princess Lilibet, 4 — crafting giant advent calendars, making snacks like “Reindeer Chow” and cooking the Christmas Eve gumbo she learned from her mother, Doria Ragland.

Harry, 41, makes an appearance too, popping in while she cooks to tease that her gumbo is “close” to being as good as Ragland’s. They joke around as they move through the kitchen, sharing a couple of kisses — an easy, intimate dynamic few ever see.

Meghan has said that Harry is genuinely enjoying seeing her slip back into her creative groove. “My husband met me when I had The Tig, and I see this spark in his eye when he sees me doing the thing I was doing when he first met me,” she told PEOPLE earlier this year ahead of the With Love, Meghan season one premiere. “It’s almost like a honeymoon period again.”

The episode lands after a stretch of Hollywood controversy, including a Kardashian-Jenner photo dustup in which images of Harry and Meghan at Kris Jenner’s 70th-birthday party were posted and swiftly deleted following a request from the Sussexes’ team. The Hollywood bash coincided with Remembrance Day events in the U.K., when the royal family was marking one of the most somber weekends of the year, prompting questions about whether the Sussexes hoped to avoid appearing tone-deaf.

Days later, Meghan’s spokesperson called a claim she had taken a $1,700 designer dress from a 2022 photo shoot “categorically false and “highly defamatory.” Her recent Harper’s Bazaar profile also drew criticism after the writer noted she was formally announced as “Meghan, Duchess of Sussex” — “even though we appear to be the only other two people in the house.”

The flurry of mini dramas underscores how the couple is still learning to navigate the Hollywood spotlight after moving to the U.S. in 2020. But friends say they weather it together.

“It never creates friction between them,” a source tells PEOPLE. “They’re fully aligned and always operate as a team. It never puts them at odds.”

While Meghan tends to dismiss outside chatter — what she herself calls “just noise” — Harry is known to take the commentary more to heart and remains especially protective of her.

[From People]

“A Kardashian-Jenner photo dustup” which was such a non-issue, Kris Jenner was back to “liking” Meghan’s social media photos days later. “But people refer to Meghan by her title” is also a pathetic criticism at this point. While I appreciate the fact that Meghan is using her voice to clapback on some of this bullsh-t, I would actually love to see Harry come out more often in defense of his wife. I’m not saying he needs to be issuing statements on her behalf or anything, but he needs to make it abundantly clear and on the record that he’s happy in California and he adores his wife.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Netflix, Kris Jenner’s IG and Meghan’s IG.