NEED TO KNOW
- Prince Harry showed off his pumpkin carving skills ahead of Halloween
- In videos shared on Instagram by Meghan Markle, the Duke of Sussex created jack-o’-lanterns
- The footage also showed the family at a pumpkin patch with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet
Prince Harry is mastering the art of pumpkin carving ahead of Halloween.
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On Sunday, Oct. 26, Meghan Markle shared a new video on her Instagram page highlighting a family day of fall activities with their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. After the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s family visited a pumpkin patch, where 6-year-old Archie ran through a corn maze and 4-year-old Lili rode in a wagon, they got to work creating jack-o’-lanterns in what appears to be the backyard of their Montecito, California, home.
Along with who appear to be their friend Marcus Anderson and Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, Harry is seen concentrating as he maneuvers a piece out of a jack-o’-lantern’s mouth.
A clip on Meghan’s Instagram Stories shows a time-lapse video of Prince Harry, 41, carving another pumpkin, from drawing shapes for the eyes, nose and mouth with a marker and cutting out the pieces to wiping it off and showing the finished product.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved from the U.K. to her home state of California in 2020, and while Halloween is celebrated in both the United States and the United Kingdom, Prince Harry might not have grown up carving pumpkins.
According to Historic U.K., while “the carving of faces into hollowed-out vegetables such as swedes and turnips” is a tradition across the pond, they note that “the current use of pumpkins is a relatively modern innovation imported from the United States, and we can also extend the same debt of gratitude to our friends in America for that ‘quaint’ ‘trick-or-treat’ tradition!”
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Prince Harry and Meghan, 44, have shared how Halloween holds a special meaning in their relationship. In 2016, they attended an apocalypse-themed party in Toronto with Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank for the holiday — just before their romance went public.
In the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, Prince Harry explained that the palace communications secretary told him that news about their relationship was about to break, inspiring him and Meghan to “pull the pin on the fun grenade” and have one last carefree night out incognito.
The Duke of Sussex shed even more light on the Halloween night out in his memoir, Spare. Harry revealed that the celebration was held at Soho House in Toronto, the city where Meghan lived while filming Suits, and that they invited “Euge and Jack,” Harry’s cousin and her then-boyfriend, to go out together on Halloween.
Dressing accordingly for the theme, Harry borrowed his friend Tom Hardy’s Mad Max costume while Meghan sported a camo tank with torn black shorts and fishnet stockings.
“The party was loud, dark, drunk — ideal. Several people did double-takes as Meg passed through the rooms, but no one looked twice at her dystopian date. I wished I could wear this disguise every day. I wished I could reuse it the next day and visit her on the set of Suits,” he added in the book.
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Meghan has also previously spoken about celebrating Halloween with their children. While appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in November 2021, the Duchess of Sussex recapped what Archie and Lilibet were for Halloween a few weeks before.
“We were home, and we saw you guys, which was great,” Meghan told the host. “We wanted to do something fun for the kids, and then the kids were just not into it at all! Archie was a dinosaur for maybe five minutes.”
“Not even five minutes,” DeGeneres interjected. “Finally, Harry talked him into putting the head on. But Lili was a skunk.”
“She was a little skunk!” Meghan said, likening her look to “Flower from Bambi.”