Yes, it's Packed with Nonsense, Extreme Hosting and Self-Help Jargon. Yet I Truly Cherish Meghan's Christmas Special.
No concerned with the season, it's constantly fair game for scrutiny on the Duchess of Sussex's Netflix series, With Love, Meghan. Commentators, both professional and armchair, have seldom found such common ground as when eagerly tearing the series' first and second seasons to pieces. The general consensus was that a more egregious regal scandal had hardly ever taken place than the now-infamous snack re-labeling incident.
Currently, as a festive rebel, she has returned with a new offering with a "Christmas Special" (aka a yuletide episode). However on this occasion, the dynamic has changed. The familiar ingredients we've come to expect – psychobabble word salads, extreme hosting – are still present, but framed of a yuletide episode, suddenly it all makes sense. The pieces have fallen together; it's a perfect snow storm.
By this point, Meghan resembles the oddball family member at Christmas celebrations everywhere – providing 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 presence is familiar and unexpectedly soothing. And she seems content; she's inflicting a bit of damage.
She knows her every micro expression, word and gaze will be dissected and judged, but still appears relaxed and remarkably at ease.
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. Because, in all honesty, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration truly is delightful. Admittedly, it's all painfully excessive, nonsense and flamboyant – but doesn't that represent just what Yuletide is about? And the words she speaks might be laughable, but the example she sets appears to be beautifully curated.
Whatever she turns her beautifully manicured, diamond-adorned hand to, she accomplishes with panache. Her recipes looks tasty, the wreath she creates is gorgeous, her presents are nearly too beautiful to unwrap. Not a single thing is mediocre or ugly – even the way she fastens her apron 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 craft master. She also seems to be genuinely relishing herself from start to finish. How could any hate-watcher not be convinced, overcome by seasonal cheer and left with a deep longing for personalized Christmas crackers or a crudites platter where greens is positioned in the form of a Christmas ring?
Meghan used to pretend for a living, naturally, but despite that, after the level of scrutiny she has weathered since she started dating Prince Harry, even a hypothetical offspring of Meryl Streep and Judi Dench would find it hard to appear this authentically. Her unwillingness to modify or even soften her routine, even though it being so relentlessly, internationally ridiculed, is strangely reassuring. In our volatile world, here is one thing we can depend on: Meghan will be like this, no matter what. We will forever know our position with her.
If you're remaining skeptical of what she's selling, a reminder that will surely come as a reassurance: you aren't required to. We don't have national service anymore, and were it to return, it would be improbable to include watching With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, conversely, you willingly check it out and are consumed by envy about her picture-perfect Christmas, there is hope either. If you are a royal or a data administrator, hardly any child completely grasps the dedication and labor their mum does in December. So you can console yourself by imagining Archie and Lilibet's 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 sweet treat.