Time to get in the holiday spirit! Although 2020 was undoubtedly a year to forget, thanks largely to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, racial inequality and a divisive presidential election, not everything that happened was bad.
The first year of the decade started off on a high note for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who shocked the world when they announced their plans to step back as senior members of the British royal family less than two years after marrying. Although the move created waves behind castle doors, it allowed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to create a new life for themselves and their son, Archie, thousands of miles away in the former actress’ native California.
“Montecito is only just over an hour’s drive from L.A., which is where a majority of their work is based, yet far enough away to escape the crowds, paparazzi and tourism in Hollywood,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in August after the couple purchased a $14.7 million mansion in the ritzy Santa Barbara neighborhood.
As Harry and Meghan settled into their new digs, millions of other people stayed locked down in their houses while the novel coronavirus continued to spread. Taylor Swift made the best of her time in quarantine, recording not one but two albums: Folklore and Evermore, which she surprise-released in July and December, respectively.
“I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released,” she wrote via Instagram as the year came to an end. “There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them.”
Scroll down for more things that brought smiles to our faces in an otherwise grim year!