They say life comes at you fast, and this year that goes for Christmas too. Seems only five minutes ago that Bozo was assuring us it wasn’t cancelled, just before cancelling it. Now it’s here again and I’m being pelted with ads much sooner than expected. Why has everyone yuled up so hard and early? Magic radio hasn’t even gone 100% yet! Give me a sec to gather my festive wits, and I’ll give you a rundown of the best, worst and weirdest the commercial world has to offer.

Let’s kick off with John Lewis, who are having a shocker of a season, what with that home insurance ad they had to pull for being misleading and generally horrid. A rare misstep from the titans of touting, but can they redeem themselves with their Christmas number, ‘Unexpected Guest’? I’m sorry to say they can’t. It’s absolutely *meh*, left me entirely unmoved, nothing ‘unexpected’ about it at all. ET in the style of Stranger Things; we’ve seen this all before, and it’s just not good enough. Why is it all about the human introducing the alien to our traditions, and not the other way round? As an evidently superior life-form, they’re well-placed to show us how it’s done, and I for one am keen to incorporate Kepler-1649c’s festivals into my calendar. I expect JL to really push the envelope, but this is Route One storytelling, blah-blah-metaphor, move on.

Talking of metaphor, let’s have a peek inside Jenna Coleman’s secret purse. Jenna, who appears to live in the same street as Paddington, is the star of the Boots advert, which is longer than Interscotia with the in-laws. Her nan gives her a present of a magic handbag that’s a bit like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag, except it produces endless Boots’ products. So wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, whoever she’s with, she can reach in and pull out the perfect present/prop – and BOY, do they milk this idea. It goes on forever, her whipping out random shit, until finally we reach Christmas Day, when Jenna can repay her generous old gran by… giving her a bottle of Boots perfume. FFS Jen, don’t you think she deserves a bit more than you rummaging round in the sack she gave you for some crappy scent? Come next Crimbo, when the advert finally ends, her nan’s giving her 50p and a clip round the ear.

Boots are also the star of TK Maxx’s ad, which features a nervous young performer at a ‘comeback concert’ – it’s an adland rule that at least 70% of commercials have to feature some sort of kiddie show because aahhhhh. Anyway, shy Laurie’s recital is saved by his snazzy metallic boots that can magically play the organ. I wish I’d known this when I was ploughing through my piano grades, as it would have made them a lot more interesting and successful.

The stars of M&S’s annual ‘This-is-not-just-food’-fest are Dawn French and Tom Holland, aka Spiderman. But in this he’s playing a pig; Percy Pig to be precise. Percy is accidentally brought to life by Dawn, who is a tree fairy. They go on a tour of an M&S store looking at all the yummy grub, apart from the pork crackling. In his compulsory-under-contract quote for the press, Tom said ‘I’ve loved Percy Pigs for as long as I can remember,’ which is shorthand for ‘since they offered me a seven-figure sum for a voiceover.’ Did you know that Percy is 30 years old this year? He’s older than Tom Holland. If that fact combined with triple chocolate panettone isn’t enough to make you feel like a past-it porker, then I don’t know what is.

Shoutout to M&S’s second offering of a woman falling into a winter wonderland, which looks manic and exhausting – much like my Christmas.

I have a major problem with Very’s attempt, which is a wevs celebration of starting Christmas early. I’m all in favour of that – it’s the beginning of November and I’m already listening to light festive jazz – but what I’m NOT in favour of, is them shoddily re-writing the lyrics to ‘Holly Jolly Christmas’ with the result that they have to emphasise the wrong syllable in the word ‘excuse’. It’s ‘ex-CUSE’ not ‘EX-cuse’. There really is no excuse for this sort of behaviour, and I’m putting them on the naughty list.

I don’t mind the Lidl advert, I suppose. It’s a series of family dinners that jump forwards in time in a vaguely amusing manner, though it’s EX-tremely optimistic to assume future Christmases won’t feature us roasting on our own apocalyptic fire. But mainly I like it because I heart the Dad’s Lidl Christmas jumper and quite want one.

Asda’s advert turns the store, and then the world, into an ice rink, which is fun, but I suspect IRL slippery floors in supermarkets is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Also, wouldn’t it have been a more suitable ad for a chain that sells frozen products, like… Iceland? However, Asda recently brought back its famous ‘bottom pat’, which is timely, because whenever I go skating I end up arse over tit and spend the rest of the day rubbing my buttocks.

Keeping with the icy theme, Sports Direct’s ad is actually pretty good, featuring a massive snowball fight with loads of sporting stars. I even recognised some of them, like Emma Raducanu, Jessica Ennis-Hill and… that’s it. I had to look up the rest. It’s very ‘does-what-it-says-on-the-tin’, this ad. Sports, direct, you might say. Their shop floor staff may be the most disinterested, shiftless employees on the planet, but their marketing team are going all out here, budget-wise. However, I was disappointed to learn that the white hooded Nike jacket sported by Jack ‘Frost’ Grealish is unavailable in store. Seems like they missed a trick there.

If you’ve been at the sherry and are feeling a bit nauseous then for God’s sake don’t watch the Disney ad. It’s about the world’s nicest, kindest stepdad ingratiating himself with his partner’s kids by reading them a (Disney, natch) storybook and taking on a level of childcare and household chores that would make any woman weak at the knees. He then ruins it, just like a man, by going out on the lash, hooking up with a stripper and vomiting on his GF’s new carpet. No, it’s worse than that: he’s unable to stop the gingerbread house they’ve made getting smashed to smithereens. He’s not responsible for wrecking it, you understand – he just can’t stop it happening. What a prick. Anyway, it’s all fine coz he stays up all night fixing it and everyone lives happily ever after. ‘Happiness is the richest thing we will ever own’- Donald Duck.

One of my favourite adverts of 2021 comes courtesy of Argos. Declaring ‘Baubles to last year’, everyone’s on a mission to overdo it this Christmas, taking a blowtorch to the pud, covering an entire towerblock in fairylights, and getting wildly overexcited about noise-cancelling headphones. The message is basically ‘last Christmas was a shitshow; we’re going fucking mental this year’. So, if you see me dressed as a reindeer, cavorting in Hyde Park Winter Wonderland with Michael Bublé riding on my back crooning ‘Jingle Bells’, then just know it’s Argos’s fault. Christmas is ON. It’s gonna be so kerrrrazy that the inevitable lockdown in January will be a relief.

In conclusion, I want to go back to the parting message of that lame John Lewis advert: ‘For a Christmas as magical as your first’. But your first isn’t magical, is it? I mean, you’re just a gurgling, pooing baby with no appreciation of the date. It should have been ‘For a Christmas as magical as your seventh.’ That’s the one, isn’t it? The one before you start the bitter slide into disillusionment.

Because that’s what life is: from your seventh Christmas, a bitter slide into disillusionment. And, like I said, it comes at you fast.