With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration review – Not fun, enjoyable or even aspirational

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None of us mere mortals will ever have a Christmas like this, but we can endure Meghan’s Netflix special as numbing content in the background of our holiday season

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Did you know that you’re supposed to wrap Christmas lights around your tree twice? Once further in and then again on the outside? I suppose I didn’t, but it makes logical sense. I’ve never thought to make my own Christmas plates or considered writing little love notes to my family in refillable felt advent calendars either, but Meghan Markle has mused on many aspects of Christmas for her predictably insipid festive special.

Now, I like Christmas, and I don’t have one of these weird royalist vendettas against Meghan Markle – I think she seems like a lovely, sweet woman! So in theory, I should enjoy With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration for what it means to provide: a massage for the brain. Sadly, this most Markle-y of Netflix content tests the limits of my holiday cheer.

Before any guests arrive for her Christmas party, she preps by writing “‘Tis the season-ing” in chalk on her kitchen chalkboard and smushes some chocolate, biscuits and sugar together in a sloppy bowl to make “Reindeer Chow” (?). When she brings in her first visitor, New York restaurateur Will Guidara, the energy shifts. Is this sexual tension between them? Or just the feeling of Netflix having put a gun to his head?

Markle tells him how Christmas crackers are a big deal in UK Christmases. “No way,” he smiles. Wait, what’s that? Look, it’s the behind-the-scenes crew sneaking one of Markle’s gruyere cheese bite things! Hahaha! What? They’re delicious! Markle and Guidara make crackers.

Next Markle slips into some personalised red PJs, embroidered with “Meg”, ahead of her two female friends coming over. The perfect accompaniment to their evening is a festive Christmas star made of pastry and mincemeat and quiche cups. “I think the girls are going to love this!” she says – a moment before they walk around the corner in their identical PJs and matching curled blow dries. Consider the bubbly popped. Markle and the girls make some Christmas wreaths.

Back solo, Markle tackles wrapping Christmas gifts. “One technique that’s really fun is just a different way in which you’re folding the paper,” she says in her hypnotic tone, layering the folds of paper “outwardly, instead of inwardly” so the finished product looks like a braid that you can tuck in a little Christmas tree branch or candy cane or something. “Or a bow right here could be really darling.” Wait, that’s actually really nice. OK, now she shows you how to wrap a bottle of wine beautifully with a silk scarf, Japanese-style. This wrapping section has its merits.

For the most part, though, Markle makes Christmas food and decorative items for your benefit without actually showing you how to do things or listing the ingredients you need like a cooking show. It would’ve been just about bearable if they’d put the recipes on the screen for you to take a photo of on your phone.

Moving on, Naomi Osaka pops over to tell Markle that she loves to see family at Christmas and relax (groundbreaking) – except when she has to look after her daughter. “But that’s the good kind of non-relaxing, right? That’s the stuff that is so soul-filling and amazing,” Markle says, scrunching her face up with love. “Yeah,” says Osaka, nodding unconvincingly. The final guest is Tom Colicchio, an Italian-American chef. They make a beet salad, which Prince Harry will hate because he loathes all these ingredients – scream.

Markle’s main piece of lifestyle advice is to have some downtime and take care of yourself at Christmas. Find something meditative for yourself, and if that meditation involves doing more yuletide chores, all the better.

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With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration might be your seasonal meditation. It’s not a real special by any stretch, but some YouTube content or the radio that you might put on in the background as you do your tree or wrap your presents. White noise to dull the senses. It’s all a little Stepford Wives, but it’s not informative, fun, enjoyable or even aspirational. Because the people watching this, including me, will never have a Christmas like this. And on that note, happy holidays!

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