Meghan Markle will likely be ringing in the New Year on Sunday from her Montecito home with husband Prince Harry and their two children, Prince Archie, four and Princess Lilibet, two.
But shortly before she and Harry met, the former actress enjoyed New Year in the snow, as she celebrated the dawn of 2016 in Iceland.
As a short unearthed clip from her former Instagram account shared on social media shows, Meghan smiled as she held a glass of champagne up to the camera, wrapped in winter white with snow falling onto her loose brunette locks.
She also posed in the snow-covered landscape under a sign reading Town of Elves, wearing ripped jeans and a black top and jacket with sunglasses, her hair tied back and chunky winter boots on her feet.
Meghan had originally captioned the images: "Happy New Year from #Iceland! 2016, what a pleasure to meet you, darling. Cheers to another amazing year to come…"
The star sparked excitement earlier in 2023, when it appeared that she had re-joined Instagram, having deactivated her popular account and blog, The Tig, before her engagement and closed her joint account with Prince Harry when they stepped back as senior working royals at the start of 2020.
An Instagram account with the handle @meghan racked up 125,000 followers this summer, despite not sharing any photos yet. It was initially set up in 2022, around the time Meghan launched her now-defunct Archetypes podcast, which was also the time when she told The Cut in an exclusive interview: "Do you want to know a secret? I'm getting back...on Instagram."
"Meghan was set to go live on Insta, but changed her mind shortly before she launched her Archetypes podcast, so it’s just sitting there now," gossip column Page Six reported a source saying in the summer of 2023.
Before she joined the royal family, Meghan closed her personal account (@meghanmarkle) and after her marriage, she initially shared the handle @kensingtonroyal with Prince Harry and the then-Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton.
In 2019, around the time Archie was born, Meghan and Harry launched their @sussexroyal page, which was then shut down the following year.
While the mother-of-two may not currently be active on social media, she and her husband do share a passion for travel and recently enjoyed a sun-soaked pre-Christmas break with their children.
The pair took a low-key trip to Costa Rica earlier in the month, where they were joined by Archie and Lilibet. In photos obtained by CRHoy, a news publication based in the central American country, the Duchess of Sussex was seen carrying her young daughter, whose face was hidden from view, but had her blonde hair on full display.
Meghan looked classy in a sleek black dress and sunhat, while Lilibet was in a white dress with her blonde locks styled in a ponytail. Another photo published from the trip saw Harry, Meghan and Archie sitting together in a golf cart, with the young Prince on his father's lap.
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