Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s holiday card features Archie and Lilibet

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are spreading cheer this holiday season with their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

On the 16th of December The Duke and Duchess of Sussex unveiled their 2024 holiday cards with a new photo of their children, Archie, 5, and Lilibet, 3. The image – one of six in the multi-photo greeting – captures the children from behind as they excitedly run towards their parents .

Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet look more grown-up than ever in the photo, which includes the family’s three dogs. The card shows Meghan smiling at Archie and Harry crouching down to greet Lili, confirming his recent comments about her long hair – red, like her older brother’s.

“On behalf of the office of Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Archewell Productions and the Archewell Foundation,” said the card’s message on a deep green background. The montage included five other pictures of Prince Harry, 40, and Meghan, 43, during their trips to Nigeria and Colombia this year. “We wish you a very happy holiday and a happy new year.”

It is a rare glimpse of the children, who were last seen when they appeared briefly in the couple’s docu-series Harry and Meghanwhich debuted on Netflix in December 2022.

PEOPLE understands that while this card is intended for professional use, the family has sent a separate, private card to their close friends and family that will not be shared publicly.

Over the summer, a friend told PEOPLE that Harry was keen to keep his children’s lives private to protect them.

“Harry has been reluctant to show his children in public, not out of a desire to hide them, but to protect their privacy and safety from potential threats. He wants them to lead as normal a life as possible without fear of kidnapping or harm.” said the friend.

“As a father and husband, Harry is determined to ensure that history does not repeat itself,” the friend added, referring to the fate of Harry’s mother, Princess Diana.

This year, the couple continued the tradition by including The Archewell Foundation in their Season’s Greetings. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex established the charity as a vehicle for their philanthropic work in 2020 and have involved Archewell in publishing their holiday cards for the past three years.

Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation operates under the motto “Show Up, Do Good” and their work with the organization took them around the world and across the US this year. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex traveled to Nigeria in May and Colombia in August to promote Archewell’s main charitable initiatives, and the organization expanded its American influence with increased programming at home.

This year marked Archewell’s second year of The welcome projectwhich helps newly resettled women build community and launch The parent networka support for families dealing with the effects of online harm. Prince Harry and Meghan’s support for these initiatives took them on the road, from Meghan attending the Welcome Project dinners in California to Harry promoting the Parents Network to Advocate for Change at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.

“It is hugely important for us to meet directly with people, support our causes and listen, to create solutions, support and positive change,” Prince Harry previously told PEOPLE during the trip to Nigeria about the power of direct connection.

“There’s only so much you can do from home and over Zoom, so we’re looking forward to traveling more because the work matters. Whether it’s the Archewell Foundation, Invictus or any of our other causes, there will always be reasons to meet the people at the heart of our work,” he said.

While the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have not featured their children in photos chosen for the holiday cards they have shared in recent years, the couple has done so in the past. Prince Archie joined his parents for the first holiday card they issued as a family of three in 2019, appearing on the illustration of a photo taken by Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sent in 2020. It pictured them in the backyard of their California home during their first American Christmas season since moving from the UK to Meghan’s home state of California.

In 2021, Prince Harry and Meghan used their holiday card to share the first photo of their daughter, Princess Lilibet, who was born in June. The photo, which captured the family of four, also confirmed that Prince Archie inherited his father’s red hair!

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“This year, 2021, we welcomed our daughter, Lilibet, into the world. Archie made us a ‘Mama’ and a ‘Papa’ and Lili made us a family,” the message read in part under the photo of Alexi Lubomirski ( who took the Duke and the Duchess of Sussex’s official engagement portraits in 2017).

In 2022, Prince Harry and Meghan’s holiday card featured a black-and-white photo of them holding hands at the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award gala in New York City, where they were honored a few weeks earlier. There, they received the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award for their work in racial justice, mental health and social impact through the Archewell Foundation.

Last year, the pair chose a glam snap of them clapping at the closing ceremony of the 2023 Invictus Games in Düsseldorf, Germany for their season’s greetings.

The virtual greeting, sent via email on behalf of Archewell, said: “We wish you a very happy holiday. Thanks for all the support in 2023!”