Lilibet's First Christmas Looks Set To Be An American Affair

Negotiating Christmas plans during lockdown is a difficult business. If the 2020 festive season taught us anything it’s that things can change at the drop of a hat. And this applies to the royal family too. It’s the first year that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will experience Christmas as a family of four but how will baby Lilibet spend her first Christmas? While it’ll no doubt be filled with food and presents, it may not be with the rest of her UK family.

In pre-lockdown years, the royal family have usually congregated at Sandringham Estate in Norfolk for the festive season. However, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex haven’t attended the family gathering since 2018. They had a wonderful white Christmas in Canada in 2019 with Meghan’s mum Doria Ragland after they announced that they’d be stepping back from their responsibilities in the royal family. In 2020, they’d moved to California.

It would seem that Lilibet won’t be spending her first Christmas in the UK. A source outlined to Page Six that extensive planning goes into the royals festive period and if they were flying over to the UK with their two small children then it would have already been announced.

"There's a lot that goes into the logistics and the planning of the family Christmas, so of course, staff know that Harry and Meghan are not coming," they said. "If they were, they would have communicated it to their family by now."

While travel restrictions have been lifted between the UK and the U.S., negotiating long haul flights with two children under the age of three is no small task. The Sussexes spent Lilibet’s first Thanksgiving at their home in Montecito, California. Speaking about the occasion on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Meghan said, "I love to cook, we'll be [at] home and just relax and sort of settle in. It's our second Thanksgiving [at] home [in] California, so it will be nice." Signs suggest that Lilibet’s first Christmas will be spent in a similar way.