Yes, it's Packed with Absurdity, Over-the-Top Hospitality and Self-Help Jargon. Yet I Truly Cherish Meghan's Holiday Special.

No matter the season, it's perpetually fair game for criticism on the Meghan Markle's TV show, With Love, Meghan. Critics, from seasoned journalists to online pundits, have hardly ever agreed so completely as when enthusiastically shredding the program's first and second seasons to pieces. The prevailing view was that a more egregious regal scandal had never been witnessed than the now-infamous pretzel-bagging incident.

Currently, in the spirit of a holiday maverick, she makes a comeback with a new offering with a "Festive Special" (aka a yuletide episode). However on this occasion, it's different. The usual elements audiences anticipate – vague self-help platitudes, overzealous entertaining – persist, but set of a yuletide episode, suddenly it all makes sense. The pieces have fallen perfectly; it's a ideal seasonal storm.

Now, Meghan is like the quirky relative at Christmas celebrations everywhere – providing 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 presence is familiar and oddly reassuring. And she seems pleased; she's inflicting any harm.

She understands her each tiny facial movement, word and glance will be picked apart and judged, but manages to seem unburdened and serenely untroubled.

Perhaps this is the first occasion in history where that well-worn saying – "Ignore them, they're just jealous" – might be true. The reason is, let's face it, everything in Meghan's Holiday Celebration truly is delightful. Yes, it's all painfully excessive, nonsense and over the top – but isn't that precisely what Yuletide is all about? And the advice she gives might be absurd, but the walk she's walking genuinely looks impeccably styled.

Anything she sets her mind to, she pulls off with panache. Her cooking looks scrumptious, the festive decoration she makes is gorgeous, her presents are practically too exquisite to tear into. Not a single thing is mediocre or visually unappealing – even the way she ties her apron is artful and chic. She doesn't bung a meal in the microwave, it "has a moment", and she creases wrapping paper like an paper-folding expert. She also seems to be genuinely relishing herself throughout. How could any skeptical viewer not be convinced, bursting with festive joy and left with a powerful yearning for crafted festive snaps or a vegetable display where greens is arranged in the likeness of a Christmas ring?

Meghan used to pretend for a living, of course, but despite that, after the intensity of examination she has endured from the moment she became involved with Prince Harry, a theoretical combination of acting royalty would have difficulty behaving this genuinely. Her unwillingness to modify or even soften her routine, despite it being so relentlessly, widely parodied, is weirdly comforting. In our volatile world, here is something we can depend on: Meghan will be like this, no matter what. We will always know our position with her.

If you're still not buying what she's selling, a thought that will certainly come as a reassurance: you aren't required to. There isn't national service anymore, and should it be reinstated, it would be unlikely to include streaming With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration. If, conversely, you decide to tune in and are overcome with longing about her flawless Christmas, all is not lost either. Whether you're a royal or a office worker, few children completely grasps the time and energy their parent expends in the holiday season. So you can find comfort by picturing Archie and Lilibet's faces when they open a beautifully scripted letter that says, 'I love you because you are brave,' from a DIY festive calendar, rather than a sweet treat.