Season two of Meghan Markle’s Netflix lifestyle series, With Love Meghan, wrapped up recently, but she dropped a surprise festive episode on Wednesday, 3 December. The holiday special brings in friends, food experts and a few familiar faces as they decorate, cook and craft. It also tempted Prince Harry into joining the fun for the With Love Meghan Holiday Celebration, even if the menu wasn’t quite to his taste.
While Meghan was preparing a beet salad and her mum Doria Ragland’s gumbo recipe with Top Chef star Tom Colicchio, she admitted that one part of the meal was bound to annoy her husband. She laughed as she explained that you naturally avoid cooking things your partner hates, before listing Harry’s top offenders.
“So if I gave you the top things that my husband hates to eat: beets, he’d call them beetroot as they say in England black olives fennel.” The salad they were making included every single ingredient on that list. Meghan could hardly contain herself as she pointed out that Harry “hates all of those flavours.”
Right on cue, Harry wandered into the kitchen, kissed his wife hello and then spotted the bowl waiting for him. His reaction was immediate. “Oh wow, that’s like the anti-salad,” he said, laughing as he took it in. He added that it was almost impressive how everything he disliked “in the world” seemed to have ended up “in one bowl.”
But the gumbo was a different story. Harry lit up when he tasted it, calling it one of his favourites. After a mouthful, he said, “I’m not sure it’s as good as your mom’s but it’s certainly close,” which made Meghan whip her head around and shout, “What?!” in disbelief at his cheek.
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Beyond the playful kitchen moments, the holiday episode leans heavily into crafts and cosy seasonal traditions. Meghan shows her go to gift wrapping tricks, folding and tying ribbon with the confidence of someone who has clearly done this a lot. She sits down with tennis star Naomi Osaka to paint holiday plates, chatting casually while they work.
She then moves on to wreath making with her friends Lindsay Jill Roth and Kelly Zajfen, creating fresh greenery arrangements for their homes. Towards the end, she joins Unreasonable Hospitality author Will Guidara to make Christmas crackers, complete with the usual jokes, sweets and paper crowns.
Netflix)
It is during this bit of crafting that Meghan makes one of the episode’s rare references to her time as a working royal. While filling the crackers, she says they were a huge part of the Christmas celebrations she came to love while she was “living in the U.K.” It is a small moment, but it stands out as a simple, warm nod to a chapter of her life she doesn’t often mention.
The holiday special feels lighter and more relaxed than previous episodes, helped along by Harry’s teasing and Meghan’s easy laugh. And although the beetroot salad didn’t win him over, the gumbo clearly did, leaving the couple laughing their way through one of their more entertaining on-screen appearances.
