The late Queen Elizabeth II, eager to find the perfect Christmas gift for her great-grandson Prince Archie, once turned to Meghan Markle for guidance. Prince Archie had a specific wish when he was two and his mother informed his grandmother about it, leading to the Queen arranging for the quirky gift to be sent to the Sussexes’ residence in Montecito, California.
Prince Harry shared this amusing anecdote with James Corden while visiting The Late Late Show. He told the TV host: “My grandmother asked us what Archie wanted for Christmas, and Meg said a waffle maker.
“So she sent us a waffle maker for Archie, so breakfast now Meg makes up a beautiful organic mix, in the waffle maker, flip it, out it comes. He loves it. And now I have waffles for breakfast, bit of yoghurt, bit of jam on top. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. Berries, bit of honey.”
Corden, however, looked bewildered and challenged Harry, replying: “Sorry you’re glossing over the fact that I cannot for the life of me imagine the Queen ordering a waffle maker to be sent to Santa Barbara. I can’t get my head around it.”
Harry quipped back: “I don’t even know how to comment on that. Archie wakes up in the morning and literally just goes ‘waffle?'”
Meghan Markle dazzled the Royal Family with her savvy gift-picking during her first Christmas at Sandringham in 2017, reportedly “playing a blinder” with a present for the Queen.
The royals cherish a unique tradition of exchanging gifts during afternoon tea on Christmas Eve, where humour is key and the less expensive the gift, the better.
Royal expert Richard Kay revealed: “Harry once gave his grandmother a pair of rubber gloves for doing the dishes – I mean, really quite bizarre presents. Meghan would have found that as extraordinary as a certain Diana Spencer on her first Christmas buying lavish gifts for her in-laws. She never made that mistake again.”
However, Meghan proved more astute than Diana in navigating Royal Yuletide customs. In the 2021 Channel 5 documentary ‘Harry and Meghan Vs The Monarchy’, Simon Vigar, the Royal correspondent for 5 News, remarked: “Meghan played a blinder on her first Christmas. She got a toy – a singing hamster – for the Queen and apparently she loved it…and so did the corgis.”
