Stream It or Skip It?

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, returns to Netflix to help viewers level up their holiday celebrations with With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. This special seasonal spin-off of With Love, Meghan sees the titular host share festive foods, crafts, and memories with both special guests and the viewers back home. After a largely poorly received first season of her series, does Meghan manage to turn things around with this special, or does it continue to feel as out of touch as With Love, Meghan? Keep reading to find out!

The Gist: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, takes viewers back to the lovely farmhouse owned by her and Prince Harry’s neighbors in Montecito, California, to share various holiday traditions, recipes, and crafting ideas. Meghan takes us from picking out the perfect Christmas tree at Santa Barbara’s Lane Farms to her stand-in home setup, which is decked out with plenty of holly jolly touches.

Over the course of this 56-minute-long special, Meghan welcomes restaurateur Will Guidara, TV creator/producer Lindsay Jill Roth, non-profit founder and longtime bestie Kelly Zajfen, tennis star Naomi Osaka, and multi-James Beard Award-winning celebrity chef Tom Colicchio to join her in some seasonal celebrations. Together, Meghan and her friends will lead viewers in everything from creating quiche cups and gumbo gift-wrapping methods to wreathmaking and more, culminating in a crew-wide toast that reminds us that the core of Christmastime is ultimately togetherness.

What Titles Will It Remind You Of? With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration is kind of like The Great British Baking Show: Holidays if you gave it a lifestyle show format and then subtract the baking series’s inherent grounded authenticity.

Performance Worth Watching: Of Meghan and all of her guests, Tom Colicchio stood out the most to me due to his expert balancing of professional cheffery with personal anecdotes in a way that ultimately felt candid, engaging, and authentic.

Memorable Dialogue: “This feels like fondue. You’ve never heard anyone say ‘fon-don’t,’” Meghan says as she simmers her gougére dough on the stove while eliciting a chuckle from her director, Michael Steed.

A Holiday Tradition: Meghan’s mom always makes gumbo for the family on Christmas Eve, so it’s a bit of a famous dish in their household.

Does The Title Make Any Sense? It’s a spin-off of With Love, Meghan, celebrating the holidays, so yep, this is a perfectly sensical title.

Our Take: While With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration does project a certain festive, clean, and professional aesthetic that will leave viewers impressed with the concocted meals and crafts, the process of making them feels a bit unrelatable and hollow. Meghan seems nice, but also extremely polished to the point of inaccessibility. Her home (which isn’t her actual home, although I understand why shooting there could cause security concerns for her family) is picture-perfect, her crafts are flawless, and her personal asides don’t really leave you feeling much closer to her. She suggests crafts like making your own wax seal and cooking dishes like gourères with cacio e pepe flavor. It’s not exactly the most affordable or easy stuff to recreate for the Average Joe.

Hosting a lifestyle show is a tough gig, and it’s not for everyone. Perhaps in the pursuit of sharing flawless festivities, the special forgot that what it really needs is warmth. There are flashes of it when we get a peek at the crew behind the camera or a little banter between Meghan and Harry, but so much of With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration feels so carefully constructed that you may wonder if even those moments were manufactured, too. The bottom line is that the holidays are a time of messiness. While I appreciated Meghan’s emphasis on family and togetherness, actually showing kitchen slip-ups, crafting mishaps, and general vulnerabilities would have gone a long way to truly reflect the inherent chaos, humor, and collaborative spirit of Christmastime.

Our Call: While fans of Meghan will love this opportunity to spend more time with her, With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration is likely not enough to convert the uninitiated into becoming fans. The special is polished, but ultimately has more sleek style than warm, authentic substance. SKIP IT.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! (At least, that’s what Andy Williams promised.) The holidays are a time to celebrate with family, friends, food, and, let’s not forget, fun things to watch. Whether you’re huddled up with the whole family in your living room or cozying up under the covers with your tablet, let Decider be your guide to all things festive this holiday season.

Maddy Casale is a Chicago-based writer and comedian who covers everything from animated series to Hallmark movies. Follow her on Duolingo @MCasale.