‘Mariah Carey has made fools of us all’: Patrick Freyne on this year’s Christmas ads

Gucci

Quiz question: How does this phrase end? “All I want for Christmas is…”

Irish Times reader: “‘You’. It’s ‘you’. That’s the last word in the title of the famous Mariah Carey song I assume you are referencing.”

You gullible idiot. You absolute ginnet. You’ve fallen for Carey’s ploy. For in this new Gucci Christmas advertisement what the dedicated diva clearly wants for Christmas is not “you” but a building filled with terrified servants, a big Christmas party featuring willowy models gathered in her honour, and an absolute surfeit of Gucci products wrapped beneath the tree in defiance of the lyrics of her song. She has made fools of us all.

Tesco

The original Christmas ads of the modern era came in the wake of the financial crash of 2008, and their purpose was to make us cry so that we could salt our food. (Actual salt was expensive.) Tesco has remembered this original brief and given us a real tear-gusher.

The excellent Roisin Conaty plays a Tesco delivery driver bringing all sorts of produce from door to door only to discover that one of the recipients is her estranged pal Anna Maxwell Martin. She is directed to the wrong house, so she and her erstwhile chum meet halfway. Then Anna Maxwell Martin’s car won’t start. So they share a drive in a Tesco van, reminiscing about times past and rekindling their friendship.

Roisin Conaty says: “I’m so sorry about what happened.”

And Anna Maxwell Martin says: “Don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago.”

Roisin Conaty leaves Anna Maxwell Martin to her door and begins to drive away in her Tesco van. Anna Maxwell Martin calls her back and they reunite for a big warm hug. I wipe a tear away because this is quite moving and I am also hungry and eager to go buy some delicious Tesco products to salt with my tears. But I am troubled. What did Roisin Conaty do to warrant this apology? It remains unsaid. If it was murder I feel Anna Maxwell Martin should still go to the police.

Walmart

It’s brave of the union-busting Walmart to lean into the Scrooge story, albeit the Scrooge story as told through the ancient medium of Muppets. I’m guessing they’ve misunderstood the story in the same way that Elon Musk seems to misunderstand all the science-fiction stories he has read. “A Victorian capitalist who is cruel to his employees? How relatable is that?!” :

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Anyway, it’s nice to see all the Muppets we know from their eponymous show and their eponymous Christmas Carol: the glamorous pig, her amphibious lover, the humorous bear, the hairy musician, the shrieking lab assistant and, of course, the chickens, even if they are all essentially now acting as scabs.

Argos

Deadpan 1970s geography teacher Richard Ayoade is visited by a dinosaur and his wife, a creepy doll, who tell him to buy his mother skincare-related gifts. He does so. Though this isn’t strictly the biblical Christmas of yore, people do worse things based on instructions they receive from talking hallucinations. Son of Sam, for example, was encouraged to kill people by visions of a talking dog. Speaking of which…

John Lewis

The wonderful Kristin Scott Thomas sits in a big house filled with beautiful furniture, her silver helmet of hair framing her perfect imperious jaw and her aristocratically raised eyebrow.

She is all set for a lovely Christmas alone in the precious solitude of her tasteful ice palace. Then her raucous grandchildren arrive and begin acting as if they own the place. “Wait a few years kids!” I cry. “Keep your powder dry. We can discuss issues of succession later, when Granny is asleep.”

The subtext of the whole ad is the price of London real estate and the impact of intergenerational wealth. Kristin Scott Thomas’s grandchildren are clearly lamenting their reduced prospects in a world ruined by the boomers with defined-benefit pensions and cheaply acquired property. Her millennial daughter is obviously measuring the windows for new curtains with her avaricious eyes. Or maybe that’s me. Maybe I’m doing that. Well, I can’t help it. I work for The Irish Times.

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Kristin Scott Thomas’s survival instinct is to pawn the grandkids off with cash money so as not to be dispatched prematurely to a nursing home. Then she fetches Pickles, her beloved wooden dog on wheels, from the attic, where he is kept like Mrs Rochester. The grandchildren are singularly unimpressed by Pickles, because while wooden dogs on wheels were fine in a time of cheap fossil fuels and affordable homes, nowadays we have the internet and crippling consumer debt.

And so in this moment of high pressure Pickles begins talking in the gruff voice of a cockney dock worker and says things like “Go on my son!” as he takes Kristin Scott Thomas on a binge of London shops as Sam Fender transforms the Rolling Stones classic You Can’t Always Get What you Want into the blandly acoustic mush beloved of retailers because it makes people feel empty inside and so more prone to shopping.

Nobody else but Kristin Scott Thomas can hear Pickles speak, by the way. She wisely keeps this development to herself. Best not give the family any more ammunition at this time.

I can imagine the marketing company’s pitch to the John Lewis board: “National treasure Kristin Scott Thomas is pushed to the edge of her sanity thanks to the emotional pressures of Christmas. She hallucinates a talking wooden dog who makes her go shopping. We think it will appeal to women aged 35 to 75.”

Tesco Ireland

The granny in this ad, being Irish and so more inclined towards psychological manipulation and intransigence, has a much better handle on things. She uses her superior wiles to convince her bougie grandson, Finn, that there are magical elves all over the place. He’s not getting her out of the farm. Oh no.

Finn instantly creates a crazy wall like the one Carrie in Homeland had and begins speculating about the hidden Elvish identity of a particular Tesco employee named Niall. Well done, Granny! You broke him. The twist? That employee actually is a secret elf. I take it all back. Thank God for vigilant busybodies like Finn. Thank you for passing on your wisdom, Granny. And to jail with Niall.

Prada

A murmuration of Hollywood starlings, including Maya Hawke and Sadie Sink, gambol about a winter wonderland while being besieged by delightful hand-animated animals. You know the sort: mice who steal stilettoes, cats who seem to be aroused by Prada handbags. All very typical beasts of the wild, really. (I’ve not been outside much.)

And these pencil edged beasts aren’t put off by their proximity to human celebrity even though several of the clothes items on display seem to be leopard print. Maybe their animated pelts are safe enough. It’s unclear from the ad if Maya Hawke and Sadie Sink skinned the leopards/fake leopards themselves. I wouldn’t put it past them.