Indeed, it's Brimming with Gibberish, Over-the-Top Hospitality and Self-Help Jargon. Yet I Truly Cherish Meghan's Christmas Special.
No considering the season, it's always fair game for criticism on the Duchess of Sussex's televisual offering, With Love, Meghan. Critics, both professional and armchair, have rarely been so united as when eagerly tearing the program's earlier episodes apart. The general consensus held that a greater royal outrage had seldom occurred than the much-discussed snack re-labeling incident.
Presently, as a festive rebel, she has returned once again with a "Christmas Special" (aka a Christmas special). But this time, the dynamic has changed. The standard components audiences anticipate – vague self-help platitudes, intense hospitality – are still present, but within the context of a Christmas special, suddenly it all makes sense. The puzzle has come together; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
At this stage, Meghan is like the oddball family member at most festive family gatherings – dispensing unasked-for guidance, and delivering the occasional strange exclamation. ("I love spinach!" … "A tradition has to have a beginning." … "A tree is part of my memory and love of the holiday season.") She's an interesting figure, but her presence is familiar and strangely comforting. And she appears content; she's inflicting the slightest hurt.
She is aware her every micro expression, utterance and gaze will be picked apart and judged, but manages to seem relaxed and too blessed to be stressed.
It could be this is the first occasion in history where that old chestnut – "Don't listen, it's pure jealousy" – might be true. Because, let's face it, each element in Meghan's Holiday Celebration is lovely. Admittedly, it's all cringily ultra-extra, nonsense and flamboyant – but doesn't that represent precisely what Yuletide is all about? And the advice she gives might be absurd, but the example she sets seems authentically beautifully curated.
Anything she attempts, she accomplishes with panache. Her cooking looks scrumptious, the wreath she creates is breathtaking, her presents are almost too pretty to open. Not a single thing is ordinary or visually unappealing – even the way she secures her apron is artful and chic. She doesn't bung a meal in the microwave, it "goes for a spin", and she creases gift paper like an craft master. She also seems to be thoroughly enjoying herself from start to finish. How could any skeptical viewer not be won over, filled with holiday spirit and left with a powerful yearning for personalized Christmas crackers or a vegetable display where greens is organized in the likeness of a wreath?
Meghan was once an actress for a living, obviously, but nonetheless, after the intensity of attention she has faced ever since she met Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of Meryl Streep and Judi Dench would find it hard to appear this naturally. Her decision to change or even soften her shtick, even though it being so constantly, globally mocked, is weirdly comforting. In our volatile world, here is something we can rely on: Meghan will be like this, no matter what. We will consistently know where we are with her.
If you're still not buying her brand, a thought that will surely come as a relief: you are not obligated to. There isn't the draft anymore, and were it to return, it would be improbable to include watching With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, on the other hand, you choose to watch and are overcome with jealousy about her flawless Christmas, you can take solace either. Be you a duchess or a office worker, hardly any child fully understands the effort and hard work their mother does in the holiday season. So you can take heart by imagining her children's faces when they unfold a calligraphy note that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a handcrafted holiday countdown, in place of a sweet treat.
