When Team Sussex briefed the media, back in August, about the Sussex family’s move to the UK, there were strong indications that Prince Harry and Meghan planned to continue spending time at their homes in Montecito and Portugal during their kids’ school holidays. Some “sources” even said outright that Meghan and the kids would be heading back to Montecito during the half-term, and that the family planned to spend Christmas in California as well. That’s been my belief this whole time, that despite Harry’s incessant talk about loving being back on “British soil,” he still promised Meghan that they would frequently go back to Montecito. Well, please allow the Daily Mail to repackage those August briefings into a new “exclusive.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle plan to spend Christmas back in California with their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, a friend has claimed. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex relocated to the UK in a surprise move at the end of August, six years after quitting the working monarchy for a new life in the US.

Christmas could have presented a chance for the Sussexes to start to repair distant relationships with Harry’s father King Charles III and brother Prince William. The monarch hosts members of the Royal Family at his Sandringham residence in Norfolk each December, continuing a tradition started by Edward VII in 1870.

But a friend told the Daily Mail that the Sussexes are trying to ‘keep their heads down between now and Christmas, when they will go back to California for the holidays’.

Harry and Meghan are understood to be planning to spend school holidays and half-term breaks in either California or Portugal, where they also own a property.

The couple have retained their Montecito mansion, which they could use for the festive season – with Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland under a two-hour drive away. Ms Ragland, 69, has been a constant presence in the family’s life since Harry and Meghan stepped down as senior royals and relocated to America in 2020. She lives in a bungalow in a wealthy residential district outside the centre of Los Angeles, under a two-hour drive away from her daughter’s Montecito mansion.

A trip by the Sussexes to Montecito will therefore give Ms Ragland a chance to spend time with her grandchildren, with whom she has formed a very close bond.

As for Archie and Lilibet’s other grandparents Charles and Queen Camilla, they saw Archie and Lilibet in person for the first time in four years at Highgrove in July.

[From The Daily Mail]

“As for Archie and Lilibet’s other grandparents Charles and Queen Camilla”… that heifer is NOT Archie and Lili’s grandmother, MY GOD. Camilla has zero warmth for Charles’ grandchildren, which is a huge reason why Charles is such a terrible grandfather (not to mention a deadbeat dad). They’re also positioning this as “why aren’t Harry and Meghan desperate to spend Christmas in Norfolk, begging for forgiveness??” As I said, this was reportedly always the plan for the family to go home to Montecito. But there’s a secret second reason why the Sussexes aren’t going to Norfolk: because they haven’t been invited. They probably won’t be invited to anything around the holidays, not even that extended-family pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, although that’s something to keep our eye on. That pre-Christmas lunch isn’t a state event either, and plenty of non-working royals get invitations. Will the Sussexes get invited? If Charles doesn’t invite them to anything, not even family events, will Harry stop with the “British soil” crap?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Meghan’s Instagram.