Admittedly, it's Brimming with Nonsense, Extreme Hosting and Self-Help Jargon. Yet I Truly Adore Meghan's Festive Episode.
No considering the time of year, it's always fair game for scrutiny on the Duchess of Sussex's televisual offering, With Love, Meghan. Reviewers, from seasoned journalists to online pundits, have seldom found such common ground as when gleefully ripping the series' earlier episodes apart. The prevailing view held that a greater royal outrage had hardly ever taken place than the much-discussed snack re-labeling incident.
Currently, like a merry renegade master, she has returned with a new offering with a "Festive Special" (or a yuletide episode). However on this occasion, the dynamic has changed. The usual elements 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 perfectly; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
Now, Meghan is like the oddball family member at the typical holiday get-together – offering random tips, and delivering 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 a bit of a character, but her aura is known and oddly reassuring. And she looks content; she's causing any harm.
She is aware her each tiny facial movement, syllable and gaze will be picked apart and scrutinized, but nonetheless looks relaxed and too blessed to be stressed.
It could be this is the first occasion in history where that well-worn saying – "Don't listen, it's pure jealousy" – could actually be true. The reason is, let's face it, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration truly is charming. Granted, it's all cringily ultra-extra, silliness and flamboyant – but is that not precisely what Yuletide is about? And the words she speaks might be absurd, but the example she sets appears to be shop-bought.
Anything she turns her beautifully manicured, diamond-adorned hand to, she pulls off with style. Her culinary efforts looks delicious, the holiday arrangement she makes is stunning, her gifts are nearly too beautiful to unwrap. Nothing is ordinary or visually unappealing – even the way she secures her kitchen garment is creative and fashionable. She doesn't bung a dish in the oven, it "goes for a spin", and she creases gift paper like an origami guru. She also seems to be genuinely relishing herself from start to finish. How could any skeptical viewer not be won over, filled with festive joy and left with a powerful yearning for crafted festive snaps or a vegetable display where greens is arranged in the likeness of a Christmas ring?
Meghan had a career in acting for a living, of course, but even so, after the degree of attention she has weathered since she started dating Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of Meryl Streep and Judi Dench would find it hard to appear this genuinely. Her decision to alter or even soften her persona, even though it being so persistently, globally mocked, is strangely reassuring. In our uncertain world, here is one thing we can depend on: Meghan will stay true to form, whatever happens. We will consistently know what to expect with her.
If you're remaining skeptical of what she's selling, a thought that will undoubtedly come as a comfort: you aren't required to. We don't have the draft anymore, and if there were, it would be unlikely to include watching With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, on the other hand, you decide to tune in and are consumed by jealousy about her flawless Christmas, there is hope either. If you are a duchess or a office worker, hardly any child fully understands the effort and hard work their mum puts in in the holiday season. So you can take heart by envisioning her children's faces when they unfold a handwritten message that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a handcrafted holiday countdown, rather than a chocolate.
