Admittedly, it's Packed with Nonsense, Over-the-Top Hospitality and Self-Help Jargon. Yet I Truly Love Meghan's Christmas Special.
No matter the season, it's always fair game for criticism on the Meghan Markle's Netflix series, With Love, Meghan. Commentators, both professional and armchair, have seldom found such common ground as when enthusiastically shredding the program's initial installments apart. The common opinion seemed to be a bigger monarchy-related faux pas had never been witnessed than the much-discussed snack re-labeling incident.
Now, in the spirit of a holiday maverick, she has returned with a new offering with a "Holiday Celebration" (or a holiday episode). However on this occasion, the dynamic has changed. The familiar ingredients we've come to expect – psychobabble word salads, intense hospitality – persist, but set of a Christmas special, the purpose becomes clear. The elements have slid together; it's a ideal seasonal storm.
At this stage, Meghan resembles the oddball family member at Christmas celebrations everywhere – providing unsolicited, unnecessary advice, and contributing the odd random outburst. ("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 quite a personality, but her company is customary and strangely comforting. And she seems happy enough; she's inflicting any harm.
She knows her each tiny facial movement, word and gaze will be dissected and criticised, but nonetheless looks unburdened and too blessed to be stressed.
Maybe this is the first occasion in history where that clichéd phrase – "Ignore them, they're just jealous" – might be true. Since, let's face it, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration is delightful. Granted, it's all awkwardly over-the-top, nonsense and over the top – but doesn't that represent precisely what Christmas is all about? And the advice she gives might be laughable, but the example she sets genuinely looks impeccably styled.
Whatever she turns her beautifully manicured, diamond-adorned hand to, she executes with panache. Her culinary efforts looks tasty, the wreath she makes is gorgeous, her gifts are almost too pretty to open. Not a single thing is average or aesthetically displeasing – including the way she ties her kitchen garment is creative and fashionable. She doesn't throw a dish in the oven, it "goes for a spin", and she folds wrapping paper like an craft master. She also seems to be genuinely relishing herself from start to finish. How could any cynical observer not be convinced, filled with festive joy and left with a intense desire for personalized Christmas crackers or a vegetable display where greens is positioned in the form of a wreath?
Meghan was once an actress for a living, obviously, but despite that, after the intensity of attention she has faced from the moment she became involved with Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of acting royalty would have difficulty behaving this genuinely. Her decision to modify or even tone down her shtick, regardless of it being so persistently, widely parodied, is strangely reassuring. In our uncertain world, here is one thing we can rely on: Meghan will remain herself, come what may. We will consistently know our position with her.
If you're not yet convinced by her brand, a point that will certainly come as a relief: you aren't required to. We don't have mandatory conscription in this country, and should it be reinstated, it would be unlikely to include watching With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, conversely, you decide to tune in and are consumed by longing about her flawless Christmas, you can take solace either. If you are a duchess or a office worker, few children fully understands the dedication and labor their mum does in December. So you can find comfort by imagining the young royals' faces when they unfold a handwritten message that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a homemade Advent calendar, rather than a sweet treat.
