The Sussexes haven’t spent Christmas at Sandringham with the royal family since 2018 – the same year they were married.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle haven’t received an invitation from the royal family to join them at Sandringham in Norfolk for their annual Christmas holiday, according to a report.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expected to spend Christmas in the United States where they live once again this year after an invitation to Sandringham wasn’t forthcoming, People magazine reported, citing a source.
The report comes just as Kate Middleton posted an emotional holiday message on her Instagram, writing 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 sent to the guests invited to her second Together at Christmas Carol Service at Westminster Abbey next month “and the “fifteen Community Carol Services across the country, thanking those attending for all they do for others.”
The Sussexes haven’t spent Christmas at Sandringham with the royal family since 2018 – the same year they were married.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle haven’t received an invitation from the royal family to join them at Sandringham in Norfolk for their annual Christmas holiday, according to a report. (Joshua Sammer/Getty Images)
The couple left England in 2020 and eventually settled in California.
They continue to have a fraught relationship with the senior royals after Harry’s tell-all memoir “Spare,” their similarly controversial 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, and their Netflix series “Harry & Meghan,” which was highly critical of the royal family as an institution.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Prince William and Kate Middleton, as well as their children, Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte, are expected to head to Sandringham before Christmas and remain there until New Year’s.
The Sussexes haven’t spent Christmas at Sandringham with the royal family since 2018 – the same year they were married. (Joe Giddens/PA Images via Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales held her first Together at Christmas carol service last year before she was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.
Christmas Day at Church of St. Mary Magdalene on the estate last year was the princess’ last public engagement for months before she revealed her diagnosis.
In September, she announced she had finished her round of preventative chemotherapy.
Prince William and Kate Middleton walking to church on the Sandringham estate with their children last year. (Samir Hussein/WireImage)
Charles was also diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer this year and is still undergoing treatment.
The royal family’s sojourn to Sandringham is a long-held tradition in which the late Queen Elizabeth would usually retreat to the estate from December through February – when her father, King George VI, died.
King Charles III speaks with the Rev. Canon Dr. Paul Williams at the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham estate earlier this month. (Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
“It will be like any other Christmas, focused on the young family,” Grant Harrold, former personal butler to Charles, told the New York Post this week of the royal family’s planned holiday this year. “They are very family-orientated, like the late queen, so that will be their focus.”
