Admittedly, it's Packed with Gibberish, Over-the-Top Hospitality and Self-Help Jargon. But I Do Adore Meghan's Festive Episode.
No concerned with the season, it's perpetually fair game for commentary on the Duchess of Sussex's Netflix series, With Love, Meghan. Critics, expert and amateur alike, have seldom found such common ground as when eagerly tearing the series' earlier episodes apart. The general consensus was that a more egregious regal scandal had seldom occurred than the now-infamous snack re-labeling incident.
Currently, in the spirit of a holiday maverick, she is back for another round with a "Christmas Special" (aka a Christmas special). Yet now, the dynamic has changed. The familiar ingredients audiences anticipate – psychobabble word salads, intense hospitality – remain, but framed of a yuletide episode, it all clicks into place. The pieces have fallen into place; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
Now, Meghan has become the eccentric aunt at most festive family gatherings – offering unasked-for guidance, 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 appears happy enough; she's inflicting any harm.
She understands her all subtle gestures, utterance and gaze will be picked apart and criticised, but nonetheless looks carefree and too blessed to be stressed.
Maybe this is the only time in history where that clichéd phrase – "Don't listen, it's pure jealousy" – might be true. Because, let's face it, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration truly is lovely. Granted, it's all cringily ultra-extra, nonsense and flamboyant – but doesn't that represent precisely what the holiday season is about? And the advice she gives might be ridiculous, but the life she leads appears to be impeccably styled.
Anything she attempts, she pulls off with style. Her culinary efforts looks delicious, the wreath she creates is breathtaking, her gifts are practically too exquisite to open. Nothing is ordinary or aesthetically displeasing – even the way she fastens her kitchen garment is artful and chic. She doesn't throw a dish in the microwave, it "goes for a spin", and she wraps gift paper like an paper-folding expert. She also seems to be thoroughly enjoying herself from start to finish. How could any skeptical viewer not be won over, overcome by festive joy and left with a intense desire for personalized Christmas crackers or a vegetable display where greens is organized in the form of a wreath?
Meghan was once an actress for a living, of course, but nonetheless, after the degree of attention she has weathered from the moment she started dating Prince Harry, even a hypothetical offspring of acting royalty would find it hard to appear this authentically. Her refusal to alter or even moderate her routine, regardless of it being so constantly, globally mocked, is weirdly comforting. In our unpredictable world, here is one thing we can rely on: Meghan will be like this, no matter what. We will consistently know where we are with her.
If you're remaining skeptical of her message, a reminder that will certainly come as a reassurance: you are not obligated to. The UK has abolished mandatory conscription these days, and were it to return, it would be improbable to include watching With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, however, you decide to tune in and are overcome with jealousy about her flawless Christmas, you can take solace either. Be you a royal or a data administrator, few children fully understands the effort and hard work their mother expends in December. So you can take heart by envisioning Archie and Lilibet's faces when they open a calligraphy note that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a handcrafted holiday countdown, instead of a chocolate.
