With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration

WITH LOVE, MEGHAN: HOLIDAY CELEBRATION

Original Airdate: December 3, 2025

Special Guests: Will Guidara, Lindsay Jill Roth, Kelly Zajfen, Naomi Osaka and Tom Colicchio, with special appearance by Ruth Lane and His Royal Highness Harry, Duke of Sussex

Mentions of "Joy": 1

Mentions of Edible Flower Sprinkles: No

Passive-Aggressive Moments: 2

Gushing Praise for Markle: "Today is the first time I've felt the Christmas spirit this year".

Christmas for people means one of at least two things. Some see it as the commemoration and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Others, more secular minded, still see it as a time of family gatherings and feasting. For Her Royal Highness Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Christmas is a time for crafting. It is a time to invite strangers into her rented home/studio to cosplay as happy families. It is a time to make a dish comprised of ingredients that your spouse hates. Christmas was never as deadly dull as it is under Mrs. Sussex's watchful eyes in With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration.

The Yuletide season is not safe from the clutches of Meghan Sussex as she gifts us with a seemingly endless parade of activities. One almost imagines that it is nearly impossible to catalog everything that Mrs. Saxe-Coburg & Gotha has her myriads of guests do. I will, however, do my best to catalog all the fun and I presume joyful activities. Some activities are with others while other activities are by her lonesome. 

Meghan visits Lane Farms where owner Ruth Lane shows her around until Meghan finds the perfect Christmas tree. Next, we are guided to making an Advent calendar, where she can "just embrace the special touches that bring you joy". 

From there, we await her first guest, restauranteur and author Will Guidara. He wrote the book Unreasonable Hospitality, which oddly is not the title of Meghan Markle's autobiography. Guidara is the husband of Christina Tosi, whom we've encountered in A Sweet and Savory Adventure. Mrs. Guidara will pop in via video call a little later. 

Mrs. Sussex will prepare gougères and what she calls "reindeer chow" for him to take home to the missus. She does warn us, however, of the importance of food. "If you don't like pepper, this is not your dish. If you don't like cheese, this is not your dish. If you don't like goodness, this is not your dish", the Duchess Hostess with the Mostess opines. "If you're a fan of all those things, this is probably your dish".

Once Guidara arrives, we can go on to learn how to make Christmas crackers. Lest there be any confusion, these crackers are not for eating. They are for decorating, as this is a British tradition of a paper-wrapped tube with confetti and various treats. Guidara checks in with Tosi who is excited for these gifts. He makes some for his kids. Meghan makes four: one for Guidara to pop open and one each for per her inscriptions "Archie", "Lili" and "My Love".

Next, we welcome "author and friend" Lindsay Jill Roth and welcome back "founder and friend" Kelly Zajfen for a pajama party. Why is the King's daughter-in-law dressed in her pjs? Well, Lindsay's family has a Christmas tradition of dressing up in matching pajamas. Therefore, our three gal-pals have to do likewise.

We are not even halfway done, folks. 

Meghan has already made a festive cinnamon star and quiche cups for their brunch. She even made some baked pears for them before we get to the big stuff. They will make holiday wreaths. Meghan tells them that this is not a competition. To be fair, they did not behave as though it was. 

Wreaths done, we can move on to Tips and Tricks for Festive Wrapping. We learn that stuffed bears do not require a gift bag. After throttling a poor teddy bear who deserved better, the Duchess of Sussex showed us how to wrap it without a bag. "Another anomaly for people at the holidays is how on earth you wrap a wine bottle", the Duchess helpfully and joyfully tells us. 

Anomaly, per the Cambridge dictionary, is "a person or thing that is different from what is usual, or not in agreement with something else and therefore not satisfactory". Granted, I don't drink, so I would not think of giving nor receiving wine for Christmas. However, is not knowing how to wrap a wine bottle truly "a thing that is different from what is usual"?  

While we ponder on the anomaly of giftwrapping a wine bottle, we can rest assured that Meghan has got you covered, so to speak. We have the Japanese art of furoshiki to help us keep the wine bottle a surprise for your guest. 

One person who might have a furoshiki wine bottle gifted to her is professional tennis player Nancy Osaka. Meghan has been thoughtful and loving enough to make a crudité platter wreath for Osaka, whom she has never met before. Osaka, pleasant if a bit puzzled by all this, will join the joyful Sparkle of Markle for plate decorating. "LET'S GO CRAFT!", Meghan says, making it sound less like a joyful activity and more like a threat. Osaka makes a plate for her new daughter Shai. Meghan does plates and mugs for her children. 

We journey briefly into Easy and Elegant Hand-Painted Cookies, which can be both a fun family activity and a nice quiet-time craft for adults. Finally, we go to our last guest, chef and restaurateur Tom Colicchio. His book, Think Like a Chef, was life-altering for her generation's Wallis Simpson. He will make beet salad and cod, while Meghan will make some gumbo. There is also some gin cocktail that Meghan has prepared earlier.

Reminiscences of their Italian and black backgrounds will pepper the conversation (no pun intended). It is 51 minutes into this 58-minute With Love, Meghan special that at long last, "Aitch" appears. Meghan introduces Colicchio to "my husband" (which is how she introduces him in Holiday Celebration). Everyone can have a laugh about how the beet salad (which Mr. Sussex would call "beetroot") has every ingredient that he hates: beets, black olives, fennel, pickled vegetables. Aitch calls it the "anti-salad". However, he at least has Mother Doria's gumbo, which is better than the gumbo that Meghan made. "Thank you for coming", Mrs. Sussex tells the man known as "my husband". However, Harry does pop up at the end, where Meghan hosts a holiday get-together with the With Love, Meghan crew. She serves champagne and everyone can love it. 

I have to endure a tradition at Christmas with the extended family of one of my relative's spouses. This tradition is where all the guests have to do a "year in review" to perfect strangers and people I see at the most twice a year (Christmas and Thanksgiving). You are expected to share all the good and bad of that year, all the things you did, all the places you went to, along with your impressions of all that and anything else that you can recall about everything and everyone of the year. Every speaker, even a guest that you bring, has to participate. Every reflection concludes with a toast after every single speaker ends their oration. I spent many years getting annual updates about one family's dog. One year, I had to listen to someone talk about their dead son for ten and a half minutes. Another year, I endured three young women go on for over an hour and a half about the One Direction concert that they went to. I confess that despite going almost every year for more than ten to fifteen years, I have yet to learn most of these people's names. 

Somehow, in some awful way, those annual struggle sessions are more enjoyable than With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. 

I always ask at least one question whenever I see a film or television show: who is the target audience? Who do the creators have in mind when they create a movie or television show? Something like Netflix's Elway is geared towards sports fans who do not even have to be Denver Broncos fans. Selena: The Series is targeted at a Hispanic, specifically Mexican American audience that still adores the late Queen of Tejano music. The Crown has in mind people who love soap operas and/or historical pieces on the Royal Family.

Therefore, who is the target audience for both With Love, Meghan and With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration? Who does Mrs. Sussex want to appeal to into watching segments on Easy and Elegant Hand-Painted Cookies and Tips & Tricks for Festive Wrapping? As she went on about the gougères, which she called "gorgeous little puffed delights", I had one question.

What the hell are gougères? 

I had never heard of such things. The esoteric nature of Markle's holiday treats is already a difficult thing to endure. It is her diseased, deranged, delusional concepts of elegant entertaining and "joy" that is almost gobsmacking when one sits through Holiday Celebration. She does not entertain her guests. She has them performing her ideas of fun. Making crafts is fun to her. Cooking rather grandiose meals is fun to her. As I watched the Guidara segment on Christmas crackers, I pictured that this is something that an elementary school teacher would have the students do. Will Guidara is approximately 47 years old. Is this sort of thing genuinely fun for him? 

Making Christmas crackers might be something that he and Christina Tosi could find enjoyable if doing it with their children. Seeing people in their forties doing child-like crafts seems more than off-putting. It seems insane. 

Come to think of it, her diseased, deranged, delusional concepts of elegant entertaining and "joy" plague the entirety of With Love, Meghan, but that is for another time.

So much of Holiday Celebration seems anything but celebratory or joyful. It seems more like work, a chore, an endless to-do checklist rather than enjoy any time with family or friends. As much as Markle may think that it is more personal to wrap a teddy bear in wrapping paper than it is putting it in a gift bag, I think most people would prefer the ease and simplicity of a gift bag than to spend time forcing the teddy bear into nice paper. 

I figure that yes, I am not the target audience for With Love, Meghan. However, I cannot conceive of what I presume is this show's target audience (wealthy women) wanting to decorate plates. No matter how personal those plates may be, it still sounds like something from the mind of a psychotic summer camp counselor. I almost expected Markle to have Osaka glue macaroni on the plates.

Going through the guest list, Holiday Celebration has a very curious assortment. Will Guidara seemed to be the most willing to do something other than what he is good at. Why have a chef cook something when you can have him make Christmas crackers? He seemed one of the more sensible people to interact with Markle. He also, intentionally or not, threw some shade her way. 

"One thing that is super-important to me about hosting at home. This is where I think people get it wrong. I think that sometimes people are working so hard to impress the people that they're inviting over that they forget about the actual reason that people are there, which is to connect and spend time with the people that have invited them". William Guidara may believe that. He expresses a rational sentiment. However, that actually undercuts Holiday Celebration's raison d'etre. The whole point of Holiday Celebration is to impress your guests. I cannot imagine inviting people over to make wreaths. I cannot imagine that they would find such things "joyful". 

One thing that I cannot and will not do is appear in public in my pajamas. Unless I was fleeing a fire or an earthquake, the idea of appearing in public while in my nightclothes is tawdry. I do not care if it is someone else's annual tradition. Meghan, I think, wanted to show how casual, relaxed and friendly she is by dressing in her pj's because her friend does. Nothing doing. It looks silly. Kelly Zajfen might as well be the Kato Kaelin of Montecito given how much time she appears to spend with Markle. This is I think Zajfen's third appearance on With Love, Meghan. That would make her the all-time record holder for guest appearances. Meghan's makeup artist Daniel Martin comes in at two, though he has a case of being tied with Zajfen as the most featured guest. Zajfen's second appearance in Feels Like Home was pretty much a "blink and you miss it" moment. Martin's two appearances in Hello, Honey! and A Sweet and Savory Adventure at least featured him for more than a walk-on appearance. Lindsay Jill Roth was just there.

Nancy Osaka looked as if she wished she were anywhere else but there. She was pleasant but looked almost puzzled by this woman. Osaka also gave perhaps the most revealing answer when it came to what Christmas meant to her. Osaka talked about how Christmas gave her a chance to be with family, which she does not see often due to her career as a tennis pro. 

This, more than likely unintentionally, drew attention to how Markle had no family in Holiday Celebration. We certainly were not about to see the-now Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie. We did not see Meghan Markle's mother, Doria Ragland, make even a cursory appearance. There was absolutely no chance that her father, Thomas Markle, was going to pop down the chimney like Santa Claus. "My husband" popped in almost at the very end. Meghan, still unable to speak the Montecito curse, introduced him to a pleasant Colicchio as "my husband". When she said, "Thank you for coming" at the end of the Colicchio segment, I did laugh. It sounded as if he did her a favor by popping in. For all her "my husband" talk, she did not seem to think of him as her life partner. He seemed more like another guest star come to adore her. 

No mention of Aitch's family was made. Not even Princess Eugenie could be manifested into popping in for gougères or gumbo. 

Markle ends Holiday Celebration by having her With Love, Meghan crew for champagne. Perhaps that is the type of family bonds that Meghan Markle can have: people who are there because they need to be there, not necessarily because they want to be there.

I think of all that Meghan Markle, or Mountbatten-Windsor, or Sussex, or Saxe-Coburg & Gotha gave up when she opted to forgo opening hospitals in Tower Hamlets to trapse about on television in her pajamas. Rather than cut ribbons and unveil plaques, Meghan decided that it would be better and more enriching (in every way possible) to spread "JOY" and edible flower sprinkles on all that she surveys. 

With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration is the television coal in your stocking. You do not learn anything. There is no joy to be found. There is no center, except to the center of attention for Meghan Markle. It is tedious watching. It is boring. It is sometimes embarrassing for all concerned. It is sometimes genuinely sad to watch. 

When it comes to the House of Windsor, I think we can say that Her Royal Highness Meghan, Duchess of Sussex is an anomaly. 

Do They Know It's Christmas if there are no
edible flower sprinkles?

0/10