Today in Unsurprising Royal Family Updates, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are definitely *not* expected to travel back to the U.K. for the holidays this year. And, yeah, just as unsurprisingly, the reason seems to have a lot to do with Harry's oh-so-controversial upcoming memoir, Spare.
The royal family has reportedly been on the verge of a meltdown since Harry's memoir was first announced and, with the book scheduled for a January 10 release, The Firm's Spare anxiety is sure to be at peak levels around Christmas.
King Charles is reportedly planning to keep the royals' Christmas traditions in place, and he and his wife, Camilla, will be hosting the fam at Sandringham, where they typically gathered for the holidays during Queen Elizabeth's reign. According to a new report from the Daily Beast, the Sussex family is absolutely on the guest list for the whole shindig, but it sounds like literally no one expects them to actually show.
“Obviously [King Charles'] sons have a standing invitation, but the reality is that no-one is expecting Harry and Meghan to fly over, given that his book is hanging over everything," a source described as a "friend of the new king and queen" explained.
Of course, even without the awkwardness that would come with pointedly avoiding any topic that could lead to Spare talk if Harry and Meghan were there, this holiday season is still going to have a weird vibe for the royals as they celebrate the season without the Queen for the first time.
"It will be very strange for the family to be at Sandringham without the queen at Christmas," the Charles and Camilla source added. "However the past two years have been fairly strange because of COVID, so at this stage they are just hoping, like everyone else, that a big gathering can go ahead."
This is far from the first suggestion that Harry and Meghan will skip Christmas in Sandringham that's made the rounds in royal reporting. The same the Daily Beast shared its latest bit of holiday goss from Charles and Camilla's unnamed BFF, the Daily Mail published an almost identical report, quoting a royal source of its own as saying that Harry and Meghan were "unlikely to attend." So, case closed (/as closed as it can be without any official on-the-record comment from an actual person involved)?
