Expressing Their Values In A Heartwarming Way
Lifted from the comments,
That would be the advert currently trending for all the wrong reasons, and regarding which viewers’ feedback has now been disabled.
Hideous advert
Appeasement and entitlement
NOT what CHRISTMAS should be about; and definitely isn’t in my book.
Oh @JohnLewisRetail you’ve completely missed the point! https://t.co/O0OBNfaPiV— Manda moo (@Warrioramira01) November 4, 2026
Says commenter Min,
Yes, they’ve often been rather sweet with an agreeable, universal sentiment. Missing friends, shyness, loneliness, not wanting to leave people out, etc. Hibernating bears. Machine-tooled emotional manipulation. Which is how a department-store Christmas ad should be.
This year, however, they’ve assumed we’ll be enchanted by rude, selfish, misbehaving children whose affection has to be bought with great effort and at great expense, in desperation. And the decision to make those children brown – because apparently you can’t have an advert without the statistically unlikely interracial couple – adds a dynamic that I somehow doubt was intended.
Commenter [+] quips,
What’s remarkable is that the project must have involved any number of highly-paid, supposedly clued-up experts, masters of nuance, and endless meetings, over months… and no bugger spotted how readily the ad lends itself to much less festive interpretations.
I watched it again this morning and am still processing just how weirdly misjudged it is.
For instance, that heartwarming moment when the scowling, diverse grandchildren shake their Christmas cards in annoyance, having found no money in them. Behaviour enabled, one assumes, by the ineffectual, unapologetic parents, who allow their offspring to wreck other people’s homes and to jump up and down on other people’s furniture.
And remember, we’re supposed to like these unparented brats, enough to care about pleasing them. And we’re supposed to identify with the grandma who wants these brats to love her, if only for a few minutes, before they presumably resume their scowling, ungrateful ways.
Feel that Christmas spirit, people.
It does rather suggest a gulf between, on the one hand, progressively-inclined John Lewis management and progressively-inclined London ad executives who think that sneaking trans flags into Christmas adverts watched by children is terribly clever – and on the other hand, actual John Lewis customers and the general public.
We’ve been here before, of course. When customers were expected to find charming the thought of their homes being trashed by a selfish, vamping, cross-dressing child.
And then there was the attempt to endear customers by announcing, very proudly, that they employ middle-aged transvestites with whipping fetishes because doing so results in “a better connection to our customers.” Thanks to these “identities we share.”
As I said at the time,
Perhaps well-off ladies in search of posh frocks and upscale furnishings will be dazzled and enchanted by the thought of sad, cross-dressing men in thigh-high boots who like to share photos of themselves smeared with unspecified white substances.
It’s hilariously insane. But in fairness, very now.
😂
Again, there is, I think, a mismatch, a gulf, in values and assumptions.
According to Rosie Hanley, JL’s Marketing & Loyalty Director,
And according to Franki Goodwin of ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, it’s a “powerful intergenerational story… the perfect balance between relatable family dynamics and proper magic.”
Yet the intended audience is evidently having some difficulty relating to the advert, in which spoiled children misbehave and insult grandma repeatedly, while their parents look on indifferently, and are rewarded for their misbehaviour.
An advert in which parenting is depicted as a feat of negligence, and in which thoughtfulness is not exactly the message that springs to mind.
First off, how dare that commercial be thirteen years old, I remember it like it was yesterday. (old man continues yelling at cloud)
Second, how far we’ve fallen in a decade and a half. The bear, while cute, was not exactly ‘traditional Christmas-y’ but it was practically ‘A Christmas Carol’ compared to Thing 1 and Thing 2 busting up granny’s gaff.
I hope Kirsten Scott Donkey, sorry Thomas, got a lot of money for that.
And the brown father is there as an NPC, while at least the mother mumbles a half-hearted sorry. In fact, I believe you only see him at the beginning of the advert . . . but his legacy, those two feral spawn, is most evident.
Actually, I am quite surprised John Lewis did not make the daughter a single mother. Or would that be too pushing the implication towards raaaaaaaacism.
By the way, is John Lewis planning an Eid advert?
And is it mean of me to suggest that Gran ought to check the father’s pockets when that miserable familiy leaves?
Apparently, we’ve missed the message.
Thing is, I get the premise – that Grandma learns “Christmas is a feeling,” not cash in an envelope. But she still has to spend a fortune turning half her home into a disco for obnoxious grandchildren, the ones who’ve been trashing the place while their parents shrug, just to get the hug she was hoping for at the start of the advert.
It doesn’t work.
And if “Christmas is a feeling,” what about the negligent parents? The ones who can’t be arsed to discipline their own children. Again, it’s dissonant.
I realise it’s just an advert, but the John Lewis Christmas ad is kind of a thing here. Has been for years. It pretty much started the trend of must-see feel-good holiday adverts. It’s supposedly a yardstick of wholesomeness and collective values, a measure of where we’re at.
And apparently, this is where we are.
The happy day.
Why are the daughter and son in law making lunch in her house? Why don’t they call her over too? Does she have to eat after the kids?
Heh. She does seem to be getting the short end of the stick.
I have never seen such a low-T, masochistic cuck as that man.
Regarding which, an earlier John Lewis offering comes to mind.
Readers may wish to compare and contrast.
David, at work.
That one was brilliant.
“Time and thought not money or material things.“
With that time and thought expressed by . . . spending oodles of money on material things to temporarily engage maliciously indifferent brats.
That’s a weight off his shoulders.
It’s a much better advert – unlike this year’s offering, not at all dissonant – and rather more in keeping with the spirit of the season.
Also, cute plot twist.
When his kids are behaving like little shits, he is rather conspicuous by his absence. And in terms of “diversity” and racial representation, which I’m assuming are things that the ad agency and JL management fret about, it does leave something to be desired.
[ Makes lunch. ]
[ Hears impertinent, rather mocking comment about amount of smoke in kitchen. ]
IT’S NOT SMOKE. THEY’RE COOKING VAPOURS.
[ Coughs, cranks up extractor fan. ]
Not unfair.
Didn’t they last year give us an absolutely heartwarming XMAS ad featuring a dad and his teenage son? It seemed to have been directed at me personally, to make me ridiculously emotional. Did the job perfectly and I even toddled along to John Lewis to buy a present for the Mrs.
It was unexpected, for sure. We know what christmas adverts are generally going to be like in this day and age.
I think you’re allowed to get a little bit tearful at a John Lewis Christmas ad.
When they’re good, I mean.
In case we get any fits of manly weeping.
Mr. Webb comments.
Surely he understands that the criticisms of the advert for its rampant consumerism are itself part of the control-the-message brainwashing? The ad was taking a beating so a plausible, commie-friendly explanation is to blame the evil, evil capitalist bugaboo of consuuuuumerism. Shirley?…Shirley?
Not unrelated, from a black woman’s perspective.
Her point about the ideological parochialism of London ad agencies and media types may be familiar to regular readers:
For instance.
She has that magic melanin.
Liberal expresses liberal opinion of Elon Musk
“Why do they always use the race card when you know they’re in the wrong?”
Must-see feel-good holiday advert
Thank you for the tissues. I just watched a previous Christmas John Lewis ad with a woman reliving all the memories she had of her sister and wow it got dusty. Way better than watching the family eat lunch in Grandma’s home without inviting Grandma to join them. Are they even supposed to be related to this lady?
Given the demographics and their behaviour, perhaps it’s a home invasion.
Undocumented house party.
And yet he’s getting the better end of the deal.
Assuming it’s not staged, that is.
Absolute classic.
A reminder, were one needed, that Anne Applebaum, who writes for The Atlantic, doesn’t understand how anything works.
She seems to subscribe to what one might call Socialist Shoebox Theory.
There are so many weird choices and omissions, a peculiar tone-deafness. The ad doesn’t even suggest much warmth between the gran and her daughter and son-in-law. And instead of, say, gratitude or wonderment, or some touching human moment, we get parental indifference and a grating disrespect, being appeased and rewarded.
Still, they did sneak in a trans-affirming flag. Because nothing says Christmas like sexual dysmorphia, transvestism and an urge to self-mutilate.
Priorities!
‘Is this real life?’
Glorious use of AI to level the playing field.
The satires now have full production values, further undermining the authority of the culture makers.
It is rather like some fever dream, unmoored from reality. And of course, when their own customers express disapproval and bewilderment, they double down and applaud themselves.
One more time, lest we forget:
As I said in the original thread:
It’s not drinks at Madame Tara’s House Of Spanking.
And here I thought David was against people displaying their fetishes in public in order to have a “better” relationship with their customers.
Another holiday classic from this side of the pond.
Isn’t that backless dress a bit much?
I mean, it’s fabulous, obviously, but perhaps a little daring for a Thursday morning.
[ Fetches tarpaulin. ]
So this may be…somewhat interesting. I asked Grok how many counties in GA voted 80% or more for Rick Jackson, the Republican candidate for governor. This should be somewhat readily available information that as a human I should, assuming I know where to look, I should be able to find in a couple minutes. For whatever reason, it took Grok about 2 1/2 minutes to dig that out. Anyway, out of 159 counties, there were 18 (including ours and several neighboring) that were 80% or more. When I asked for 60% or more (which didn’t take near as long), that number grew to 102. When I expanded further to 50% or more I got 125 counties, including Decatur which having had friends who lived there, having spent a few weeks in the summer there as a kid, and having seen it decay over the years, I was kinda surprised to see.
[ Wipes bar. ]
Stop me if you’ve heard this one.