Indeed, it's Packed with Gibberish, Extreme Hosting and Psychobabble. However, I Honestly Cherish Meghan's Holiday Special.
No concerned with the season, it's perpetually open season for commentary on the Meghan Markle's TV show, With Love, Meghan. Reviewers, from seasoned journalists to online pundits, have hardly ever agreed so completely as when enthusiastically shredding the lifestyle show's earlier episodes to shreds. The common opinion held that a greater royal outrage had seldom occurred than the now-infamous snack re-labeling incident.
Now, like a merry renegade master, she has returned for another round with a "Christmas Special" (aka a yuletide episode). Yet now, things have shifted. The familiar ingredients viewers are accustomed to – vague self-help platitudes, intense hospitality – persist, but framed of a yuletide episode, the purpose becomes clear. The pieces have fallen perfectly; it's a ideal seasonal storm.
At this stage, Meghan has become the oddball family member at the typical holiday get-together – providing random tips, 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 a bit of a character, but her aura is known and unexpectedly soothing. And she appears pleased; she's causing any harm.
She knows her all subtle gestures, utterance and gaze will be picked apart and judged, but still appears relaxed and remarkably at ease.
Perhaps this is the first occasion in history where that well-worn saying – "Pay no mind, it's only envy" – may well be true. The reason is, in all honesty, all aspects in Meghan's Holiday Celebration is delightful. Yes, it's all painfully excessive, silliness and extravagant – but isn't that precisely what Yuletide is for? And the talk she's talking might be absurd, but the life she leads genuinely looks impeccably styled.
Anything she turns her beautifully manicured, diamond-adorned hand to, she executes with style. Her cooking looks scrumptious, the holiday arrangement she creates is gorgeous, her gifts are nearly too beautiful to open. Nothing is average or visually unappealing – including the way she fastens her apron is creative and fashionable. She doesn't bung a meal in the oven, it "has a moment", and she creases wrapping paper like an origami guru. She also seems to be completely savoring herself throughout. How could any skeptical viewer not be convinced, filled with seasonal cheer and left with a intense desire for handmade crackers or a vegetable display where greens is arranged in the likeness of a Christmas ring?
Meghan had a career in acting for a living, naturally, but despite that, after the degree of attention she has weathered from the moment she became involved with Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of acting royalty would struggle to act this authentically. Her unwillingness to alter or even tone down her persona, even though it being so relentlessly, internationally ridiculed, is oddly heartening. In our uncertain world, here is something we can depend on: Meghan will stay true to form, come what may. We will consistently know what to expect with her.
If you're still not buying her brand, a reminder that will surely come as a reassurance: you don't have to. There isn't national service these days, and if there were, it would be unlikely to include streaming With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, conversely, you willingly check it out and are gripped with jealousy about her idyllic Christmas, there is hope either. Be you a duchess or a data administrator, few children completely grasps the time and energy their mum does in December. So you can take heart by envisioning the young royals' faces when they open a beautifully scripted letter that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a homemade Advent calendar, in place of a chocolate.
