How Harry and Meghan's Christmas card tries to convince you that they're the perfect family

By Ed Cumming

Meghan and Harry left the royal family and moved to Montecito, California, to live like a more normal family. On the evidence of this Christmas card, they are having mixed success.

Does a normal family send a Christmas card like this? The wording is the first indication all is not well.

Beginning any friendly letter "On Behalf of the Office of" ought to sound alarm bells in the recipient, especially if it goes on to list two separate versions of their names and two production companies, like the credits of a film.

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Six photos is another red flag. There is only one acceptable use of a family photograph on a Christmas card: to remind people you haven't seen for a while of how many children you have and how fat and/or bald you are now, so they don't blank you in the event of an unplanned encounter in John Lewis.

Even the smuggest round-robins' content themselves with a single picture of the family on safari or skiing, possibly with an inset of a child's graduation (2.1; Durham).

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Sadly Meghan and Harry's jewel-like public personae have too many faces to be captured in a single frame. Instead, each of these six snaps is calibrated to reveal a different side to them, with the result that it looks less like a Christmas card and more like the brochure for a holiday camp: Montecenter Parcs.

Picture 1

Proving Meghan's gimlet eye for the main prize, the first of the Sussex hexaptych sees the Duchess in Full Diana Mode, embracing a random child while smiling beatifically.

The message

Just like Princess Diana, Meghan loves all the world's children, ergo all the world's children, ought to love Meghan. Unlike the bitter and manipulative British media, children are free from prejudice and simply recognise the goodness in adults. Also, for all the other frazzled 40-something mums out there, it is possible to look stylish in a primary school, you simply need £2,000+ (approx. $4000) for a Loro Piana blazer.

Picture 2

The Royal Family in Exile, by Ralph Lauren. Meghan and Harry embrace their children Archie and Lilibet in a gorgeously dappled garden, while a trio of faithful hounds watch on.

The message

Unlike the actual royal family, who parade their children at every opportunity, we are empathetic and media-savvy enough to know that the worst crime you can commit on social media is to reveal your children's faces. Our children are happy, healthy, ginger, and leading the completely normal childhood you get when your parents are merely humble TV producers and podcasters.

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Picture 3

Meghan smiles beatifically at something out of shot, possibly the image of her family in the previous picture, while her husband sniffs her hair admiringly. In the background a man in a lanyard, possibly a security guard, respectfully looks the other way.

The message

Meghan's hair smells really nice. We have to pay for our own security these days. Meghan has this £1700 (approx. $3400) dress in three colours. Please do not ask why we have cropped this picture not to show the back of Harry's head from behind.

Picture 4

Harry and Meghan having a laugh on their "definitely not royal" three-day trip to Nigeria earlier this year, complete with beaded necklaces. You can imagine the Instagram caption: "Humbled by this experience". Meghan is wearing a peach dress from Heidi Merrick.

The message

We are better at being the royal family than the royal family. Just like Diana, we are very natural with people. More down to earth. The fact this variety of dress is called "Windsor" and was launched in the year they got married"? Pure happenstance.

Picture 5

Who, us? Just a couple of global humanitarian icons on their "definitely not royal" four-day trip to Colombia earlier this year, complete with sunglasses and, in Meghan's case, a Panama hat. She smiles beatifically.

The message

It's not a holiday, it's a trip with an important purpose: to show how good we look in the sunshine. We are approachable, but if you see us across the pool, under no circumstances come over and say hello. As we have mentioned, we have private security.

Picture 6

Our duke enjoys a special moment with a child in a hospital bed [edit, this was an injured soldier], so enthralled by the exchange of positive energy that he's hardly aware his picture is being taken. Is the child enthralled by this visit, or simply too sick to run away? The picture does not say.

The message

Although I may look like an Apache pilot turned scurrilous memoirist, I am in fact a being of pure charity.

There you have it: a story in six pictures, less a greetings card than a storyboard for a Netflix biopic about the year they have had. Why stick at six? When you have this much to offer, an advent calendar would be more appropriate.

Only at the end of this epic do we learn what the purpose of it all has been.

View gallery

All the defining photos of the British royal family in 2024

The office of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Archewell Productions and Archewell Foundation would like to wish us a "Happy Holiday Season", an immaculately bland and non-denominational description that avoids any mention of the Big C (Christmas, not Charles).

It is a wonder that they have stuck to the Gregorian calendar, at the risk of offending everyone who observes the Julian, Lunar, Aztec, Jewish or financial years.

Something to think about next time.

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