Yes, it's Packed with Gibberish, Over-the-Top Hospitality and Self-Help Jargon. However, I Honestly Love Meghan's Festive Episode.
No matter the season, it's always fair game for scrutiny on the Duchess of Sussex's TV show, With Love, Meghan. Reviewers, expert and amateur alike, have rarely been so united as when enthusiastically shredding the lifestyle show's initial installments to shreds. The prevailing view was that a bigger monarchy-related faux pas had seldom occurred than the much-discussed pretzel re-packaging incident.
Now, as a festive rebel, she has returned once again with a "Festive Special" (also known as a holiday episode). However on this occasion, things have shifted. The standard components audiences anticipate – vague self-help platitudes, intense hospitality – are still present, but set of a holiday show, the purpose becomes clear. The pieces have fallen into place; it's a flawless festive blizzard.
At this stage, Meghan is like the oddball family member at most festive family gatherings – dispensing random tips, 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 company is customary and strangely comforting. And she appears pleased; she's inflicting any harm.
She understands her each tiny facial movement, utterance and gaze will be dissected and scrutinized, but nonetheless looks relaxed and too blessed to be stressed.
Maybe this is the only time in history where that clichéd phrase – "Ignore them, they're just jealous" – could actually be true. Because, you know what?, each element in Meghan's Holiday Celebration is delightful. Granted, it's all awkwardly over-the-top, nonsense and extravagant – but doesn't that represent just what Yuletide is about? And the advice she gives might be laughable, but the life she leads appears to be impeccably styled.
Whatever she turns her beautifully manicured, diamond-adorned hand to, she pulls off with panache. Her recipes looks scrumptious, the festive decoration she creates is stunning, her gifts are nearly too beautiful to unwrap. Not a single thing is average or aesthetically displeasing – including the way she fastens her apron is creative and fashionable. She doesn't throw a dish in the oven, it "has a moment", and she creases wrapping paper like an craft master. She also seems to be genuinely relishing herself from start to finish. How could any skeptical viewer not be charmed, overcome by seasonal cheer and left with a intense desire for crafted festive snaps or a crudites platter where greens is positioned in the likeness of a wreath?
Meghan was once an actress for a living, obviously, but despite that, after the intensity of examination she has faced ever since she became involved with Prince Harry, even a hypothetical offspring of two legendary actresses would find it hard to appear this authentically. Her unwillingness to change or even tone down her routine, even though it being so persistently, globally mocked, is oddly heartening. In our unpredictable world, here is one thing we can depend on: Meghan will be like this, come what may. We will forever know our position with her.
If you're still not buying her brand, a reminder that will undoubtedly come as a comfort: you are not obligated to. The UK has abolished the draft in this country, and should it be reinstated, it would be unlikely to include viewing With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, on the other hand, you decide to tune in and are consumed by longing about her flawless Christmas, there is hope either. Be you a royal or a everyday person, few children completely grasps the time and energy their mother expends in December. So you can console yourself by picturing Archie and Lilibet's faces when they open a handwritten message that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a handcrafted holiday countdown, instead of a candy.
