Yes, it's Brimming with Absurdity, Over-the-Top Hospitality and Self-Help Jargon. Yet I Truly Love Meghan's Holiday Special.
No matter the season, it's perpetually open season for commentary on the Meghan Markle's TV show, With Love, Meghan. Reviewers, expert and amateur alike, have hardly ever agreed so completely as when enthusiastically shredding the program's first and second seasons to pieces. The common opinion was that a bigger monarchy-related faux pas had never been witnessed than the notorious pretzel-bagging incident.
Currently, like a merry renegade master, she makes a comeback with a new offering with a "Christmas Special" (or a Christmas special). Yet now, things have shifted. The standard components audiences anticipate – psychobabble word salads, extreme hosting – persist, but within the context of a Christmas special, it all clicks into place. The pieces have fallen together; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
Now, Meghan is like the eccentric aunt at the typical holiday get-together – dispensing unsolicited, unnecessary advice, and contributing 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 an interesting figure, but her aura is known and oddly reassuring. And she seems pleased; she's not doing any harm.
She knows her every micro expression, syllable and glance will be analyzed and judged, but nonetheless looks carefree and too blessed to be stressed.
It could be this is the first occasion in history where that clichéd phrase – "Ignore them, they're just jealous" – might be true. Since, in all honesty, each element in Meghan's Holiday Celebration honestly feels delightful. Granted, it's all painfully excessive, nonsense and flamboyant – but isn't that exactly what Christmas is all about? And the words she speaks might be absurd, but the life she leads appears to be impeccably styled.
Anything she sets her mind to, she executes with style. Her recipes looks tasty, the holiday arrangement she creates is breathtaking, her presents are practically too exquisite to unwrap. Not a single thing is average or aesthetically displeasing – even the way she ties her apron is artful and chic. She doesn't bung a dish in the oven, it "goes for a spin", and she wraps wrapping paper like an origami guru. She also seems to be completely savoring herself from start to finish. How could any cynical observer not be won over, bursting with holiday spirit and left with a deep longing for crafted festive snaps or a vegetable display where broccoli is positioned in the shape of a wreath?
Meghan had a career in acting for a living, of course, but nonetheless, after the level of attention she has faced from the moment she met Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of Meryl Streep and Judi Dench would struggle to act this authentically. Her unwillingness to modify or even soften her routine, despite it being so persistently, widely parodied, is strangely reassuring. In our volatile world, here is one thing we can count on: Meghan will remain herself, come what may. We will forever know what to expect with her.
If you're still not buying her message, a point that will certainly come as a comfort: you aren't required to. There isn't national service in this country, and were it to return, it would be unlikely to include streaming With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, however, you decide to tune in and are consumed by jealousy about her flawless Christmas, there is hope either. If you are a duchess or a office worker, no kid truly appreciates the time and energy their mum expends in December. So you can take heart by picturing her children's faces when they unfold a calligraphy note that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a homemade Advent calendar, in place of a candy.
