Your definitive ranking of who won consumerism this Christmas

It's early-to-mid-November you excitable manchildren. Get a bloody grip.

If your Christmas excitement starts before you could open an advent calendar window, you need to have a serious think about what you're doing with the other 11 months of the year.

But anyway, 'tis the season for companies to start harking back to some timeless, faux-sentimentalist semi-detached Oxfordshire vision of 25 December.

It's always a high production value advert in which some off-the-focus-group-charts-adorable kid makes a generous gesture to his family, before the corporate watermark shows up, to make you feel fuzzy enough in-store to shill out for a stocking filler that won't see the light of January.

They usually work pretty well.

Here's our ranking of this year's efforts with a bit of help from Twitter:

1. Marks and Spencer

The clear winner. They got the cutest kid, and the off-beat-but-slick-but-folksy charm, just right.

The plot is that Mrs. Claus receives a letter from a brother who often fights with his sister, asking for just the right Christmas gift. Mrs Claus goes out of her way.

It's suitably feel-good.

Twitter agrees:

Here's the full advert:

One pet-peeve - it's Father Christmas, not Santa Claus, and this advert is advancing the Americanism horribly.

2. Waitrose

This one is the boldest attempt to turn you into a gibbering wreck.

It follows the perilous journey of a robin across the country returning to a plinth upon which a girl has placed a mince pie (we assume she does this every year).

Along the way, Waitrose plays havok with a innocent child's (yours) emotions as the robin escapes the clutches of predators and storms alike, to return home.

Your mum's going to love it, your Dad's gonna pretend to be hard-hearted about it, but you'll catch him bawling in the kitchen searching desperately for a scapegoat onion to chop.

Twitter also loves the Waitrose offering:

3. John Lewis

The plot is essentially a man makes a trampoline for his daughter in the backgarden for Christmas day.

The dog watches two foxes, a badger and a hedgehog enjoy it at night. In the morning, the dog beats the girl to be the first one to enjoy the trampoline.

A real misfire. Makes viewers crack a slight smile, but doesn't tug at heartstrings at all. People also managed to turn it into an unfortunate metaphor for Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton to the White House.

I will be taking my kitchen equipment purtchases elsewhere this year.

You can watch the full video below:

So, which was best?

Vote for your favourite in the poll below:

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