Admittedly, it's Packed with Gibberish, Extreme Hosting and Self-Help Jargon. However, I Honestly Love Meghan's Holiday Special.
No concerned with the season, it's constantly open season for commentary on the Duchess of Sussex's Netflix series, With Love, Meghan. Reviewers, from seasoned journalists to online pundits, have rarely been so united as when gleefully ripping the lifestyle show's first and second seasons to pieces. The general consensus seemed to be a greater royal outrage had never been witnessed than the now-infamous pretzel re-packaging incident.
Currently, in the spirit of a holiday maverick, she has returned once again with a "Holiday Celebration" (aka a Christmas special). However on this occasion, the dynamic has changed. The usual elements we've come to expect – vague self-help platitudes, overzealous entertaining – remain, but within the context of a yuletide episode, the purpose becomes clear. The pieces have fallen perfectly; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
Now, Meghan has become the eccentric aunt at most festive family gatherings – providing unsolicited, unnecessary advice, 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 quite a personality, but her company is customary and oddly reassuring. And she looks happy enough; she's not doing any harm.
She understands her every micro expression, word and look will be picked apart and scrutinized, but nonetheless looks unburdened and too blessed to be stressed.
Perhaps this is the first occasion in history where that clichéd phrase – "Pay no mind, it's only envy" – might be true. The reason is, in all honesty, all aspects in Meghan's Holiday Celebration truly is charming. Granted, it's all cringily ultra-extra, nonsense and extravagant – but is that not just what Christmas is all about? And the talk she's talking might be laughable, but the life she leads seems authentically beautifully curated.
Anything she sets her mind to, she executes with style. Her cooking looks delicious, the festive decoration she makes is breathtaking, her gifts are almost too pretty to open. Not a single thing is mediocre or aesthetically displeasing – including the way she secures her kitchen garment is creative and fashionable. She doesn't throw a meal in the oven, it "takes a twirl", and she folds 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 seasonal cheer and left with a intense desire for crafted festive snaps or a vegetable display where broccoli is arranged in the likeness of a wreath?
Meghan used to pretend for a living, obviously, but even so, after the degree of examination she has weathered since she met Prince Harry, the love child of Meryl Streep and Judi Dench would find it hard to appear this genuinely. Her decision to change or even moderate her shtick, regardless of it being so persistently, globally mocked, is strangely reassuring. In our volatile world, here is one thing we can count on: Meghan will remain herself, no matter what. We will always know where we are with her.
If you're not yet convinced by her message, a point that will certainly come as a comfort: you are not obligated to. There isn't mandatory conscription in this country, and if there were, it would be unlikely to include streaming With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, on the other hand, you willingly check it out and are overcome with envy about her flawless Christmas, there is hope either. Be you a duchess or a office worker, no kid fully understands the time and energy their mother does in the holiday season. So you can console yourself by envisioning the young royals' faces when they open a handwritten message that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a homemade Advent calendar, instead of a chocolate.
