Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are not invited to spend Christmas with the royals

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have not been invited to join the royal family at Sandringham House for Christmas this year, a royal source told People.
The couple’s exclusion from royal Christmas celebrations does not come as a surprise — they have not attended the traditional royal Christmas gathering since 2018, the year they got married, reports People. They are expected to celebrate the holidays in the United States.
Since stepping down from their royal duties in 2020, Harry and Meghan have routinely been cut from royal events. The couple did not receive an invite to Trooping the Color, an annual celebration of the reigning monarch’s birthday, for the second time in a row this year, per Harper’s Bazaar.
Harry has not attended a royal event since his father’s coronation ceremony in 2023, which he attended without Meghan, as previously reported by the Deseret News.
In lieu of royal duties, the couple has turned their focus to the Archewell Foundation, a nonprofit founded by the couple.
The rest of the royals are still expected to keep tradition alive and spend the holidays at Sandringham. Since the 16th century, the royal family has attended a service at St. Mary Magdalene in Sandringham on Christmas morning, per the royal family’s website.
It is a custom the late Princess Diana openly disliked.
“It was highly fraught,” Diana told biographer Andrew Morton, per Vanity Fair. She described the holiday tradition as “terrifying and so disappointing. No boisterous behavior, lots of tension, silly behavior, silly jokes that outsiders would find odd, but insiders understood. I sure was (an outsider).”
Prince William, Kate, Princess of Wales, and their three children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are all expected to join King Charles III at the Sandringham House in Norfolk for Christmas in the wake of a year William called “the hardest of his life.”
Ahead of royal holiday celebrations, the Princess of Wales revealed via social media that a “special letter, reflecting on the importance of love, empathy and how much we need one another in the most difficult times” will be given to guests invited to attend her second Together at Christmas Carol Service at Westminster Abbey.
The letters will also be sent to “the fifteen Community Carol Services across the country, thanking those attending for all they do for others.”
Kate hosted the first Together at Christmas Carol Service last year, before she was diagnosed with cancer.
In September, Kate announced she completed her chemotherapy cancer treatments.
In a video message shared on X, Kate said, “As the summer comes to an end, I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have finally completed my chemotherapy treatment.”
“Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus. Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes,” she continued.
“Despite all that has gone before I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life.”