Indeed, it's Full of Nonsense, Over-the-Top Hospitality and Psychobabble. Yet I Truly Adore Meghan's Festive Episode.
No matter the time of year, it's perpetually hunting season for commentary on the Meghan Markle's televisual offering, With Love, Meghan. Reviewers, both professional and armchair, have hardly ever agreed so completely as when gleefully ripping the series' earlier episodes to pieces. The prevailing view seemed to be a greater royal outrage had seldom occurred than the much-discussed snack re-labeling incident.
Currently, like a merry renegade master, she has returned for another round with a "Festive Special" (or a yuletide episode). Yet now, things have shifted. The familiar ingredients we've come to expect – vague self-help platitudes, extreme hosting – remain, but set of a Christmas special, it all clicks into place. The pieces have fallen into place; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
By this point, Meghan has become the eccentric aunt at most festive family gatherings – 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 quite a personality, but her company is customary and unexpectedly soothing. And she appears happy enough; she's inflicting a bit of damage.
She is aware her all subtle gestures, syllable and gaze will be analyzed and scrutinized, but manages to seem carefree and too blessed to be stressed.
Maybe this is the initial instance in history where that clichéd phrase – "Ignore them, they're just jealous" – could actually be true. Since, you know what?, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration truly is delightful. Granted, it's all awkwardly over-the-top, nonsense and over the top – but isn't that just what the holiday season is for? And the talk she's talking might be ridiculous, but the life she leads genuinely looks shop-bought.
Whatever she sets her mind to, she pulls off with panache. Her recipes looks delicious, the holiday arrangement she crafts is gorgeous, her gifts are practically too exquisite to open. Not a single thing is ordinary or ugly – even the way she ties her kitchen garment is creative and fashionable. She doesn't throw a meal in the microwave, it "takes a twirl", and she wraps gift paper like an craft master. She also seems to be genuinely relishing herself throughout. How could any skeptical viewer not be charmed, bursting with festive joy and left with a intense desire for handmade crackers or a vegetable display where greens is arranged in the form of a Christmas ring?
Meghan had a career in acting for a living, of course, but despite that, after the intensity of attention she has faced since she became involved with Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of Meryl Streep and Judi Dench would find it hard to appear this authentically. Her refusal to change or even moderate her routine, despite it being so relentlessly, widely parodied, is weirdly comforting. In our uncertain world, here is something we can rely on: Meghan will be like this, whatever happens. We will forever know where we are with her.
If you're not yet convinced by her message, a reminder that will certainly come as a reassurance: you don't have to. We don't have mandatory conscription anymore, and if there were, it would be unlikely to include viewing With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, however, you decide to tune in and are overcome with longing about her picture-perfect Christmas, all is not lost either. If you are a duchess or a data administrator, hardly any child truly appreciates the effort and hard work their mum does in December. So you can take heart by imagining the young royals' faces when they unfold a beautifully scripted letter that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a handcrafted holiday countdown, in place of a sweet treat.
