There is no such thing as the perfect family Christmas

Charlotte Cripps, The Independent

The Duchess of Sussex flawlessly pulls together a picture-perfect Christmas in Montecito, California, where she lives with Prince Harry and their two children, Archie, six, and Lilibet, four, in her Netflix special, With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. She’s dressed up on festive merriment and can’t stop smiling, whether that’s hosting a brunch with her friends in matchy-matchy red PJs before making festive wreaths as their “activity”, or making us all feel bad by creating homemade advent calendars with carefully placed notes (sample: “I love you because you are so kind”) for her children to open every day. No mad dash for a Cadbury’s chocvent for her, Meghan is far too busy wrapping presents with a wax seal, and telling us the things we need to do that feel “really connective and sweet”.

However, as Meghan very well knows, there is no such thing as the perfect family Christmas — and this year, the contrast with reality versus fantasy couldn’t be starker. Everything looks gorgeous from the “super sweet crafts” to the special baked biscuits, but however hard she tries to sugar-coat Christmas as a family dream-fest, the truth is, there is estrangement on both sides of her and her husband’s family. And as her father lies in hospital in the Philippines, we discover that she hasn’t even got his phone number to get in touch with him. Small wonder then that Meghan is featured in a rogues' gallery of 'holiday hypocrites' as part of a Christmas window display at LA’s boutique store Kitson. Their Holiday hypocrisy window display' has become famous and the Duchess is pictured in a specially made 'Montecito diva' santa hat.

Meanwhile, on Harry’s side, the couple haven’t spent a Christmas with the royal family since 2018, making this the seventh consecutive year they have been absent from the Sandringham celebrations. Family relations will likely be more strained since Harry’s appearance last week on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the US, where he auditioned as himself for a “Christmas prince” role in a Hallmark-style TV film. Meghan and her father, Thomas Markle, 81, have been estranged since before her wedding to Prince Harry. As Meghan presents a show placing family and love at the heart of Christmas, her father was making pleas from his hospital bed following the amputation of his left leg below the knee, asking her to see him “one more time before I die”.

Rather than confronting reality head-on in a way that might actually help other people come to terms with tricky family dynamics at Christmas, Meghan is busy glue-gunning over the cracks. I was triggered as soon as I saw Meghan skipping through a Christmas tree farm looking for a perfect 9ft tree to the twinkly music of The Beach Boys’ holiday song “Little Saint Nick”. It brought back strong memories. My family used to listen to The Beach Boys when we headed to Cornwall every summer in our Peugeot estate — before we all dramatically fell out. That means like Meghan and Harry, I too am estranged from my entire family this Christmas, and it’s heart-crushingly painful, not joyous in any way.

Meghan’s father told The Mail on Sunday that he dreams of seeing son-in-law Prince Harry and grandchildren Archie and Lilibet “before it’s too late”. Although Meghan claims that she reached out to her sick father following his serious health scare, her dad says he’s not heard from her. The reality is that Meghan might have to invite the film crew back for Christmas Day to make up numbers because, apart from her mum, Doria Ragland, there’s little family around. I know how it feels. This year, I am setting off to the north of England to see my late partner’s family, whom I have adopted as my own, as my own family have cut ties. I am estranged from my three half-siblings and their families since we fell out completely over my late father’s will after he died in July 2024 — and things had already gotten pretty difficult before his death, when I was his sole carer. Watching Meghan’s Netflix show just rubs salt into the wound. In the same way that scrolling perfectly curated Instagram feeds can trigger “compare and despair” in others, so does her Christmas special. It fosters negative feelings of not measuring up and makes people feel isolated. It sets up unrealistic standards of “perfect” lives and unattainable ideals. It can fuel envy, self-doubt, anxiety and depression.

The harsh reality is that many people, like me and indeed her, are bracing themselves for a Christmas with few relatives in sight. It is painful for my daughters, aged nine and seven, not to have relationships with their cousins, as Archie and Lilibet will also soon discover. To be torn apart by dysfunctional family dynamics — whether it be over money, sibling rivalry, or difficulties adapting to another family’s way of being — is hard. It’s all very well being the hostess with the mostess, but it’s meaningless if it’s all an act — or at least acknowledge that many tables will be missing significant others this year. The reason Meghan’s show jars so much is that fawning over baubles and crudité platters like a Stepford Wife feels like a distraction from a deeper truth.