Admittedly, it's Packed with Absurdity, Over-the-Top Hospitality and Psychobabble. Yet I Truly Love Meghan's Festive Episode.
No concerned with the season, it's constantly fair game for scrutiny on the Duchess of Sussex's TV show, With Love, Meghan. Commentators, from seasoned journalists to online pundits, have hardly ever agreed so completely as when enthusiastically shredding the program's initial installments to shreds. The common opinion held that a bigger monarchy-related faux pas had seldom occurred than the now-infamous pretzel re-packaging incident.
Currently, as a festive rebel, she has returned with a new offering with a "Christmas Special" (aka a Christmas special). However on this occasion, things have shifted. The usual elements we've come to expect – psychobabble word salads, intense hospitality – remain, but set of a holiday show, suddenly it all makes sense. The pieces have fallen perfectly; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
Now, Meghan is like the oddball family member at Christmas celebrations everywhere – dispensing random tips, and supplying the occasional strange exclamation. ("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 an interesting figure, but her presence is familiar and strangely comforting. And she looks pleased; she's not doing any harm.
She knows her each tiny facial movement, syllable and gaze will be picked apart and judged, but nonetheless looks relaxed and remarkably at ease.
Maybe this is the first occasion in history where that clichéd phrase – "Pay no mind, it's only envy" – could actually be true. Because, let's face it, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration honestly feels delightful. Granted, it's all painfully excessive, nonsense and flamboyant – but isn't that just what Christmas is about? And the talk she's talking might be ridiculous, but the example she sets appears to be shop-bought.
Whatever she sets her mind to, she pulls off with panache. Her recipes looks delicious, the holiday arrangement she crafts is breathtaking, her presents are practically too exquisite to open. Not a single thing is ordinary or aesthetically displeasing – including the way she secures her kitchen garment is creative and fashionable. She doesn't bung a dish in the oven, it "has a moment", and she wraps 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 convinced, overcome by holiday spirit and left with a powerful yearning for personalized Christmas crackers or a vegetable display where broccoli is organized in the form of a festive circle?
Meghan had a career in acting for a living, naturally, but even so, after the degree of examination she has faced ever since she became involved with Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of acting royalty would find it hard to appear this naturally. Her decision to modify or even soften her routine, regardless of it being so relentlessly, internationally ridiculed, is weirdly comforting. In our uncertain world, here is one thing we can count on: Meghan will remain herself, no matter what. We will consistently know our position with her.
If you're still not buying what she's selling, a reminder that will certainly come as a relief: you don't have to. We don't have mandatory conscription these days, and should it be reinstated, it would be improbable to include streaming With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, conversely, you willingly check it out and are consumed by longing about her idyllic Christmas, there is hope either. Whether you're a royal or a data administrator, hardly any child fully understands the effort and hard work their mum does in December. So you can console yourself by picturing her children's faces when they reveal a handwritten message that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a homemade Advent calendar, rather than a candy.
