Yes, it's Packed with Nonsense, Extreme Hosting and Self-Help Jargon. However, I Honestly Love Meghan's Holiday Special.
No concerned with the season, it's always fair game for criticism on the Meghan Markle's televisual offering, With Love, Meghan. Commentators, both professional and armchair, have hardly ever agreed so completely as when gleefully ripping the program's first and second seasons to shreds. The prevailing view held that a greater royal outrage had never been witnessed than the much-discussed snack re-labeling incident.
Currently, like a merry renegade master, she is back with a new offering with a "Festive Special" (aka a Christmas special). Yet now, it's different. The familiar ingredients audiences anticipate – vague self-help platitudes, extreme hosting – are still present, but framed of a holiday show, it all clicks into place. The elements have slid perfectly; it's a perfect snow storm.
At this stage, Meghan has become the oddball family member at most festive family gatherings – dispensing unasked-for guidance, and supplying the periodic peculiar declaration. ("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 seems happy enough; she's inflicting a bit of damage.
She is aware her every micro expression, syllable and look will be picked apart and judged, but still appears carefree and too blessed to be stressed.
Perhaps this is the first occasion in history where that well-worn saying – "Pay no mind, it's only envy" – may well be true. Because, in all honesty, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration is lovely. Admittedly, it's all cringily ultra-extra, nonsense and flamboyant – but is that not exactly what Christmas is for? And the words she speaks might be laughable, but the example she sets seems authentically impeccably styled.
Anything she sets her mind to, she executes with panache. Her recipes looks tasty, the holiday arrangement she crafts is breathtaking, her presents are nearly too beautiful to tear into. Nothing is mediocre or visually unappealing – even the way she secures her kitchen garment is artful and chic. She doesn't bung a dish in the oven, it "takes a twirl", and she creases wrapping paper like an origami guru. She also seems to be completely savoring herself the entire time. How could any cynical observer not be won over, bursting with festive joy and left with a powerful yearning for crafted festive snaps or a crudites platter where broccoli is organized in the form of a Christmas ring?
Meghan was once an actress for a living, of course, but even so, after the degree of scrutiny she has faced since she met Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of acting royalty would find it hard to appear this authentically. Her unwillingness to change or even tone down her shtick, even though it being so persistently, internationally ridiculed, is weirdly comforting. In our volatile world, here is something we can depend on: Meghan will stay true to form, whatever happens. We will always know what to expect with her.
If you're not yet convinced by her message, a point that will undoubtedly come as a comfort: you are not obligated to. The UK has abolished mandatory conscription 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 consumed by envy about her flawless Christmas, all is not lost either. If you are a royal or a everyday person, few children completely grasps the effort and hard work their mother puts in in the holiday season. So you can find comfort by picturing Archie and Lilibet's faces when they unfold a calligraphy note that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a DIY festive calendar, rather than a sweet treat.
