Prince Harry recounts son Archie's sweet accident with Queen Elizabeth ornament

In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry offered insight into his first Christmas away from the royal family in 2020, spent in Montecito, California with Meghan Markle and their young son Archie.

According to Harry, the couple purchased a large Christmas tree from a local pop-up shop in Santa Barbara to decorate their new home. Meghan gifted Harry an ornament featuring Queen Elizabeth's face.

Harry wrote that Archie, who was around 19 months old at the time, had an accident while playing near the tree. The toddler shook the tree, causing the ornament to fall and smash on the ground. 

Ever helpful, Archie then tried to fix it by spraying water on the broken pieces, not understanding it was the Queen's face on the ornament.

"One present was a little Christmas ornament of...the Queen! I roared. What the—? Meg had spotted it in a local store and thought I might like it,” Harry wrote in his memoir Spare. “I held it to the light. It was Granny’s face to a T. I hung it on an eye-level branch. It made me happy to see her there. It made Meg and me smile."

"But then Archie, playing around the tree, jostled the stand, shook the tree, and Granny fell. I heard a smash and turned. Pieces lay all over the floor," Harry explained.

"Archie ran and grabbed a spray bottle. For some reason he thought spraying water on the broken pieces would fix it. Meg said: No, Archie, no - do not spray Gan-Gan! I grabbed a dustpan and swept up the pieces, all the while thinking: This is weird."