Meghan Markle's Friend Opens Up About The Sussexes' First Family Christmas Card

Lilibet Diana, the daughter and second child of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, made her public debut this year via the family's Christmas card. Prince Harry is holding Archie, and Markle is holding Lilibet in the air, and the caption reads "Happy Holidays. This year, 2021, we welcomed our daughter, Lilibet, to the world. Archie made us a 'Mama' and a 'Papa,' and Lili made us a family" (via Harper's Bazaar).

What this year's card has in common with Archie's first Christmas card in 2019 is that everyone is all smiles. In what would be the final Christmas that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were active members of the Royal Family, their Christmas card featured baby Archie front and center. The black and white card has Archie crawling towards the camera with Markle and Prince Harry watching him and smiling in the background in front of a Christmas tree (via Twitter). "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our family to yours" read the card.

But while this year's photo was taken by their wedding photographer Alexi Lubomirski, the 2019 photo wasn't done by a pro.

Janina Gavankar, who you might recognize from "True Blue" or "The Morning Show," has been friends with Markle for over 15 years (per US Weekly). And she was the one who took the picture of Archie and family that ended up as their 2019 Christmas card. "First of all, how lucky am I that I just happened to be there in that moment," she said on Good Morning America. "That's just an iPhone photo."

Taking a good phone pic might have become easier over the years, but to take one good enough to be seen around the world? Impressive!

Gavankar went on to explain the sweet reason that it wasn't a challenge to get a photo like that with Markle and fam. "These guys, they love each other so much. When you're around people that just have this much love in their household, moments like this happen all the time. It's actually easy."