The best Christmas ads of all time

Everyone knows the season is upon us when Christmas carols, jingling bells and scenes of family holiday bliss decorate the commercial space on television. This year, 2020, things feel a little different. The usual pictures of families together, around a big Christmas dinner, are less frequent. Expectations for our usual Christmas are carefully guarded as no one knows what the next month will look like with the current state of the world. But, this year, I’m letting the Christmas cheer carry me away.

I’m letting the adverts of old, filled with people hugging people, airports acting as normal and shops spilling over with customers, remind me of all the Christmases we’ve had where we have taken every ounce of this for granted. I’d trade in every year of complaining about shopping in Oxford Street crowds, of huffing and puffing about how crowded Heathrow Airport is or getting annoyed at my family for whatever absolutely stupid reason there ever was to ever be annoyed. I’d give anything to accidentally be shoved in the street by a poor dad carrying way too many Christmas packages. I’d love to be on a flight home where I’m absolutely sure nothing could taint the end result of that flight… a hug from my mom. And, if I could, I’d squeeze my little brother so tight and say, “let’s put on Santa Clause the Movie right now and eat M&Ms until we’re sick to our stomachs.”

None of those activities are on the cards. They will be next year. I know that. But this year, I needed a reminder of everything good and wonderful about the holiday period. The best place to find that has always been the holiday advertisements. Always. So, I thought I’d share over 50 of them… that’s how many I found after two days of research, two days of crying so hard it looked like my eyeballs were bobbing in tiny ponds.

I will warn you, some of these are tough to watch. Almost all of them are about people coming home, people seeing their loved ones against all odds. This is the one circumstance it seems we didn’t think would ever come upon us. There is no ad here to make us feel better about not being able to see our families this holiday season. They are all just here to say…. when you can see them again, this is a reminder of just how good it will feel.

Some of these will make you cry, some will make you laugh, some will make you miss your mom, others will make you long for a Christmas pudding, but all will feel your heart with warmth…

PS. Give the ads a minute to load. There are a lot of them!

1. Apple iPhone 2013