Meghan Markle had a past Thanksgiving with both her divorced parents, but her father left early after a blunder "that didn't go well," Prince Harry wrote in his book.
The Duchess of Sussex said recently they would keep their celebrations low key, but hinted she will see her mother, Doria Ragland.
One family member she is less likely to invite over for lunch is Thomas Markle, her estranged father, who she has not spoken to since the days before her May 2018 wedding.
The idea of Meghan sitting down to eat with both her parents may now sound unlikely after hostile interviews given by him and years of radio silence by her. However, that is exactly what happened in November 2016, weeks after Harry and Meghan's relationship was first made public.
They were not, however, at home as both Meghan and Ragland were being followed at the time by paparazzi photographers and had taken refuge at the L.A. residence of a friend of Harry's.
The prince was on a Merchant Navy ship being sailed around the Caribbean, having just joined Rihanna to promote the importance of HIV tests in Barbados.
"I was only able to text Meg," Harry wrote, "and only if I stood on the bench in my cabin, phone pressed against the porthole.
"We were connected just long enough for me to learn that she was safe at my friend's house.
"Better yet, her mother and father had been able to sneak in and spend Thanksgiving with her.
"Her father had brought an armful of tabloids, however, which he inexplicably wanted to talk about. That didn't go well, and he'd ended up leaving early."
The tabloids in question would almost certainly have been full of stories about his daughter who at the time had been fending off photographers.
"Neighbors told Meg they'd been harassed too," Harry wrote. "Men had gone up and down the street, asking questions, offering sums of money for any tidbit about Meg—or else a nice juicy lie.
"One neighbor reported being offered a fortune to mount, on their roof, live streaming cameras aimed at Meg's windows. Another neighbor actually accepted the offer, hitched a camera to his roof and pointed it straight at Meg's backyard. Again she contacted the police, who again did nothing.
"Ontario laws don't prohibit that, she was told. If the neighbor wasn't physically trespassing, he could hook the Hubble telescope up to his house and point it into her backyard, no problem.
"Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, her mother was being chased every day, to and from her house, to and from the launderette, to and from work. She was also being libeled. One story called her 'trailer trash.' Another called her a 'stoner.'
"In fact, she worked in palliative care. She traveled all over Los Angeles to help
people at the end of their lives."
With those kind of stories in the papers it is perhaps easy to see why Meghan may not have welcomed an armful of tabloids.
At the time, Harry and Meghan's relationship was a long distance one and had been fairly calm up until the very end of October 2016 when an exclusive in the Sunday Express told the world about their romance for the first time.
"I was worried about Meg," Harry wrote. "She couldn't go home because her house was surrounded by paps.
"She couldn't go to her mother's house, in Los Angeles, because it too was surrounded by paps. Alone, adrift, she was on break from filming, and it was Thanksgiving time.
"So I'd reached out to friends who had a house sitting empty in Los Angeles, and they'd generously offered it to her. Problem solved, for the moment. Still, I was feeling worried, and intensely hostile towards the press."
Jack Royston is Newsweek's chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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