Oh we’re so back.

ASDA

I feel like this format of advert – BIG STAR doing mundane work at a regional branch of the company – is sort of played out, having been successful for both Yorkshire Tea and Warburtons over the past few years. Probably others, but I am not an advert encyclopaedia, am I? I will say that this juuuuust about squeaks through as OK because Bublé gives is a lot of charisma. You may find him unbearably cheesy, but that’s exactly what this sort of affair requires so it works, I think it works.

Is it festive? Kind of, ish, it gives us an idealised, amped-up version of the now-traditional backstage-at-the-supermarket stuff we understand to be how shops look at Christmas (lots of things being wheeled left-to-right by smiling workers in the cleanest uniforms possible, sausage rolls being pulled out of oven racks, things of that nature), and ends with Bublé belting out a Christmas number as per his contract. Tentative thumbs up, but I’ll be sick of Mickey Bubbles sooner rather than later I think.

MORRISONS

Kudos to whoever it was that managed to pilot this concept from “pissing about in the kitchen” to “actual Christmas ad campaign”, I salute your laziness. It’s fun, and the choice of Starship’s second best song means it’s a guaranteed hit among A Certain Generation, but it really does feel quite last minute. Why is this Christmas? Because we cook a lot at Christmas? Hmm. Good casting on the oven gloves, though. Really some excellent choices in there, especially the cat one with the googly eyes and if Morrisons don’t start selling those they’re missing a trick.Disappointing, the way they swallow back the “more reasons” jingle at the end, really low in the mix. We’ll live with that, I guess, the way we live with all our disappointments.

SAINSBURY’S

Sorry but this is a mess. From the opening fart joke to the baffling, faddish Rick Astley cameo through the completely wrong Ski Sunday music it just feels confused and charmless. Father Christmas mumbling a commentary doesn’t add anything, either. This is a change of direction for Sainsbury’s at Christmas, away from their high production values and sometimes even higher concept (remember Santa: Origins? I can’t forget it), and it really doesn’t work at all. Still scratching my head over the music choice.

ARGOS

These celebrity cameos are going too far now! What, we’re supposed to buy something because they’ve hired M3gan, the killer doll from the movie “M3GAN”? What kind of message is this for the kids??

M&S

Oh Marks are in hot water on all sides, aren’t they? You’ve got people saying they’re burning the flag of Palestine on the one hand (utter fucking nonsense, and if you bought into it you should consider yourself a massive dupe), and on the other you’ve got Britain’s Thickest Headteacher saying they’re doing a woke at the kids by disrespecting Elf on the Shelf, the nation’s only Christmas tradition since time out of mind.

Again, confected bullshit. I’m not going to say I love this advert – it’s pretty mediocre – but what it manifestly does not do is piss on the sanctity of our Christmas traditions. For those who need media literacy lessons in the back, this is clearly a ham-fisted way of saying that Christmas isn’t about the artificial traditions we impose on ourselves, so if they don’t make you happy don’t do them. No one will die if you neglect to make a gingerbread house. The world doesn’t end because Trivial Pursuit doesn’t get dusted off for the family get-together. And no one, but no one, will miss the Elf on the Fucking Shelf, the little cop cunt.

As an aside, they’re once again running a food campaign based on that fairy played by Dawn French and I still don’t get who they’re for. Do they test well? They must. At least Percy Pig isn’t in them now.

MCDONALD’S

Late to the party, McDonald’s, but your Christmas adverts of the last few years have been my favourites – quirky and moving in a way that shouldn’t really be allowed from this most heinous of corporations. So, let’s see…

See, your mistake here was thinking everyone really loved the eyebrows thing from that first advert and not, say, the concept of fucking off work and having a burger while Oh Yeah by Yello hammered away in the background.

So it’s basically that first advert at scale, with lots of eyebrows and a song about killing yourself in order to get traffic moving again. I guess it’s not without its moments but from the oddly heartwarming stories of parent-child bonding to the incredibly sour Christmas play scene is such a switcheroo I don’t know what to do with it. Back in your Happy Meal box, McDonald’s, you whiffed this one really badly.

BOOTS

At first I thought this was all set/filmed in America, but closer inspection shows it’s Britain, I don’t know why I thought that or why I thought to bring it up here but there you go. Just watching all these adverts makes you go a bit funny, you know? Hard to know what’s what.

This is decent, clips along at a good whack, solid concept, didn’t quite stick the landing in my opinion. They shouldn’t have had any presents left at the end, but that’s OK because you don’t buy presents for Santa, your generosity on the way is the real gift but UH OH HERE COMES MR CONSUMERISM, MR CONSUMERISM IS HERE. LET’S LET MR CONSUMERISM IN AND SEE HOW HE VIEWS SANTA.

COCA COLA

Trucks trucks trucks trucks trucks TRUCKS TRUCKS TRUCKS don’t care about this actually hate stupid Coke Santa just do the trucks TRUCKS TRUCKS TRUCKS HOLIDAYS ARE COMING MOTHERFUCKER TOOT TOOT

AMAZON

How am I choosing these? Apart from the big supermarkets I’m not, hahaha, I’m just letting the algorithm do it for me. So Amazon is in, for some reason. And although this is sort of sickly and stupid, I dunno, it hit me just right the first time I saw the full version and there’s a nostalgia in there that really lives up to the “algia” part of the word. It has something to say about the looming spectre of death, loss, grief… which isn’t very Christmassy of it, to be honest. It wraps it up in the fond memories of carefree youth, but then don’t we all? As death looms, why not face it head on by throwing yourself down a hill? Drown the future in golden memory and snowdrifts, even as it hurtles into darkness. I think perhaps I need to move on to something more straightforwardly fun.

BARBOUR

Seriously, just let the algorithm work.

Besides which, this is genuinely just a 90-second Shaun the Sheep episode so are you complaining? You’d better not. It’s as winning and charming as you’d expect, even if it is advertising that most Tory of garments – the waxed jacket. Aardman takes its patented ramshackle-idiots-in-slick-claymation formula and grafts it on to Barbour’s product in a surprisingly smart and seamless way. Yeah, the Farmer probably does have a waxed jacket. Yeah, if it was knackered the sheep and Bitzer probably would try to fix it. It only snaps when the actual product has to appear, which is a shame but we get all the rest.

ALDI

I hate Kevin, I have always hated Kevin (well, maybe he was ok in the first advert when it was just taking the piss out of the John Lewis juggernaut), they keep inflicting Kevin on me and I don’t understand why.

Why, Kevin Enjoyers? What do you get out of this pap? The same grating rhyme scheme every year, the same inert “wacky” jokes, the increasingly tedious pop culture references (this one doesn’t even bother to do anything with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just hits the same beats then fucks off, job done)? What does it for you? I want to kick his stupid head off and he doesn’t even have a head.

LIDL

We don’t have raccoons in this country. Those aren’t our roadsigns. Our cities don’t look like that. We drive on the left. Wait, unlike the Boot’s one, this is American. Lidl isn’t American, is it? Why is this happening? This feels fully disconnected from Lidl as a brand, like it’s a generic Christmas advert that Lidl have bought and slapped their branding on. A real swerve from their last few years, which have been smart, often funny in a way that Kevin the FUCKING Carrot isn’t and, for a company not based in the UK, very in tune with British Christmas bollocks. What a let down.

JOHN LEWIS

Oh, here’s where the Sainsbury’s people went.

This is, for John Lewis, fucking bonkers. Like, fully bananas. It jettisons the “sad cover version” soundtrack for some stirring Andrea Boccelli, and you can forget “heart-warming family Christmas”, they’ve gone for “What if Little Shop of Horrors was Christmas for some reason?”. Do I love it? Not sure, but I don’t hate it. I like the implication the dog will probably be lunch. The exuberant, well-observed animation of the flytrap. The family absolutely not having any of it. The inevitable “aww” moment just slightly undercut by the plant chomping the gifts.

And it speaks to much the same feeling as the M&S ad – “Let your traditions grow” is largely identical in sentiment to their “Enjoy thismas”, and if we can get serious for just one second there looks to me like a distinct effort to reframe Christmas traditions in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Lockdown changed the way a lot of us think about family Christmas time, made the punishing expectations of the modern festive period look pointless and absurd. Two of the biggest adverts this year are now saying “Do it your way, re-create the traditions, they were only ever guidelines” and, for all that this is a sales pitch, I like that idea. So let’s all UH OH MR CONSUMERISM IS HERE.