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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are getting ready to ring in a California Christmas after a turbulent season
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The Duchess of Sussex’s latest installment of her Netflix lifestyle series, With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration, offers a rare view into her holiday traditions with Harry
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The episode premieres after a stretch of Hollywood controversy, most notably a social media dustup following Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday party
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.”
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex/Instagram
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in ‘With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration’
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.”
Jake Rosenberg/Netflix
Meghan Markle in ‘With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration’
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.
“It’s not something to be taken for granted when you have a partner, a spouse, who is just so behind you,” Meghan said of Harry’s support during a podcast appearance in April.
“I always think about it like the end of Super Mario Bros. When you get to the final, final level and they go, ‘Slay the dragon, save the princess.’ I’m like, that’s my husband,” she continued. “He’s constantly going to do whatever he can to make sure that our family is safe and protected.”
Eric Charbonneau for The Archewell Foundation
Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie join Our Big Kitchen Los Angeles on Nov. 26, 2025
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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also marked the season beyond their home, recently volunteering as a family at a local community kitchen, bringing Archie and Lilibet to give back with their charitable Archewell Foundation.
As Meghan puts it in the special, “Hopefully we have these for quite a long time. A tradition has to have a beginning.”
Read the original article on People
