Meghan Markle Reveals What Famous Guest Showed Up at the Sussex Family Thanksgiving Last Year

Mar. 15, 2025

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, attends the 2023 Variety Power Of Women event at Mother Wolf on Nov. 16, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.Photo:Robin L Marshall/FilmMagic

Robin L Marshall/FilmMagic

Prince HarryandMeghan Marklehave an open door policy for their friends on holidays — and one famous friend of theirs showed up for Thanksgiving last year!

“I was thinking about, in the past few years of having Thanksgiving here, like many of us, I think you always make sure there’s room at the table for your friends who don’t have family, which is really key,” she said, adding Steinem “came for Thanksgiving” in 2023.

Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex and Gloria Steinem attend the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awards: Celebrating Generations of Progress & Power at Ziegfeld Ballroom on May 16, 2023 in New York City.Kevin Mazur/Getty

“We’re always making sure we have something fun to do,” Meghan toldMarie Claireof the holiday. “Like any other family, you spend time having a great meal and then what do you do? Play games, all the same stuff, someone brings a guitar — fun.”

“I love the holidays,” Meghan added, saying of her kids that they are now “3 and 5, so every year it gets better.”

“At first, I think as a mom with children you’re just enjoying having them there, but they’re not understanding everything that’s happening yet,” Meghan continued. “But now we’re at the age where I just can’t wait to see it through their lens every year.”

It’s important to her, she said, that Archie and Lilibet experience the “magic” of traditions like “great recipes that they end up connecting to a formative memory” at Thanksgiving. For Christmas, the family puts out “carrots for the reindeer.”

“Every single holiday is a new adventure,” Meghan said.

Prince Harry, Princess Lilibet, Prince Archie and Meghan Markle in a still from Netlfix’s ‘Harry & Meghan’ docuseries.Netflix/YouTube

Netflix/YouTube

Duringa November 2021 appearanceon her friendEllen DeGeneres’talk show, DeGeneres asked about the family’s Thanksgiving plans that year. “I love to cook,” Meghan said. “We’ll be home and just sort of relax and settle in. It’s our second Thanksgiving at home in California, so it will be nice.”

DeGeneres, who also lives in Montecito, then joked, “What time should we show up?”

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits The National Theatre on Jan. 30, 2019 in London, England and Ellen DeGeneres arrives at SAINT LAURENT At The Palladium at Hollywood Palladium on Feb. 10, 2016 in Los Angeles, California.Karwai Tang/WireImage; Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Five years earlier, in 2016 — her first Thanksgiving since meeting her future husband Prince Harry — Meghan revealed she cooked the perfect Thanksgiving turkey in a throwback photo on hernow-deleted Instagram. In a photo beside a delicious looking turkey, Meghan wrote, “Oh, that time I roasted apretty perfect Thanksgiving turkey! The question is, can I do it again? The pressure is on!”

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Meghan Markle and her turkey on Instagram.

In a post on her former lifestyle blog,The Tig, Meghan wrote of Thanksgiving as a child, “Despite the contrast of my two worlds growing up, there was a powerful commonality: both my parents came from little, so they made a choice to give a lot — buying turkeys for homeless shelters at Thanksgiving, delivering meals to patients in hospice care, donating any spare change in their pocket to those asking for it, and performing quiet acts of grace — be it a hug, a smile or a pat on the back to show ones in need that they would be alright.”

“This is what I grew up seeing, so that is what I grew up being: a young adult with a social consciousness to do what I could, and to, at the very least, speak up when I knew something was wrong.”

source: people.com