To hate every single advertisement that refers to the "perfect" Christmas?

What annoys me is the constant barrage of ads for funeral policies !!!!! What do you want for Christmas > Oh a funeral policy please ,,,,you get a free pen !!!!

i enjoy the christmas ads - apart from the john lewis one which isn't really christmassy to me.
i know we won't have a "perfect" christmas as shown by the ads but our christmas is perfect for us!!
i'm looking forward to christmas day once again and, quite frankly, i just don't care about the consumerism - i buy what i want for my family out of love .......... the same way i buy the food and drink.
i believe in the baby jesus and also father christmas - and enjoy every moment of the christmas period.

We had the latest edition of the world's worst round robin today. Written in the third person, full of exotic foreign holidays taken, house extensions built etc etc, They only live a mile away from us and I've seen them once this year. Why bother?
I do try to shut out perfect Christmas ads, but DH will tear smug letter to shreds as soon as he knows it's come!

Good for you sunseeker we all should spend Christmas the way we want. Sorry to hear about your DH. I lost my son 9years ago it isn't the same but we get by. Have a nice Christmas your way.

It distresses me to wander round Grand Central Shopping Centre, where the message seems to be that you should give give give(i.e.spend spend spend), and if you don't/can't do this, then you don't really love your family/friends. Sad and pathetic, yet folk seem to fall for it!

I love watching Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation,Now THAT is more realistic and true to life than all the soppy ads put together!

Nearly all my friends go for the full caboodle (starting from late Nov they all have their trees etc up)and I feel very curmudgeonly and bah humbug .I just keep quiet. I love my DDs coming home for Christmas and some family time (we had Christmas Day on Christmas Eve last year on Boxing Day the one before as DD2 works in Nhs )I do put up decorations (I 'collect'cribs) and a tree and we do have traditional food etc But I (and DH especially)cannot bear the conspicuous consumption and comercialism of it all .We have a tiny family and the image of those huge happy gatherings makes me a bit sad sometimes especially as my only sibling died tragically young earlier this year

talking of ads, has anyone noticed that the ads on this website are of perfectly beautiful, slim, mobile, well groomed/dressed "older" people - not a million miles away from all of us, of course

My Christmases were always spoiled by [alcoholic] father having tantrums, so I tried very hard to have "perfect" days for my family - until I realised that it was my expectations not theirs... So on 24th midday, i shut up shop and played with the DCs, and really enjoyed myself. Lesson learned!

granoffour, thank you! what an enchanting advertisement - never mind what it is selling...

I don't usually watch ads but there was some tosh on a commercial channel and I had to sit through a stream of Christmas advertisements. I have to say I rather enjoyed all the artificial jollity but then I shall only see them once.

They were nothing like a real Christmas which is as full of flaws and foibles as are the people celebrating the season. Last year our lovely and generous children gave us a new TV and my husband spent the whole of Christmas afternoon drilling and refitting the furniture so the TV could be in place for 'Downton Abbey' that evening. The house was full of chaos, dust and extremeley loud noide for about two hours.

My mother, who has the first stages of Alzheimer's went off to the kitchen to get away from the noise the kitchen and 'stole', opened and drank my DD's present of a special bottle of liquor bought by her boyfriend. My DD was very upset and then mum drank even more and caused a row over the Christmas dinner (which we have in the evening).

Still, our far from perfect Christmas was fine and we are all looking forward to the next one. My DD thinks we can manage not to be upset by things because we do not have too many others. With 15 in the house someone is bound to be cross or upset.

I loathe the commercialisation of Christmas and every other aspect of family life. So much misery created by advertising.

If you want a proper Christmas go to church, you will always be welcome, church is the real deal for Christmas. Other than that, if you want to lord it over other people and compete for perfection you can do it on the other 364 days.

It is all about greed and achievement, the perfect dress/ dinner/ party/ present, none of that is Christmas!!!!

merlotgran l do agree re smug Round Robins, our favourite comes from DH's cousin, never read such a self congratulatory piece in my life, then the husband joins in and they pat each other on the back ad nauseam. Obviously not familiar with the parable of the Pharisee, and she's a vicar !

PS - I meant to add that I don't think my role reversal ideal Christmas conforms to any advertiser's perfect picture!

The best Christmas for me is to have all the family under one roof (not mine). This year senior GD won't be there - going sunseeking with boyfriend - but the GC are of an age when they can all muck in and help in the kitchen, if their dads will tolerate them, while granny and DiL will settle down with ginger wine and 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

Adverts usually pass me by. I block them in my iPad and mobile and mentally block them out visually on TV or around the town. I'm sure many people do this - just too many, too much, too similar.

Just do what you want to do for Christmas, buy gifts you think people would like at a price you can afford, and stuff all the ads up the turkey's backside.

Deedaa that made me howl with laughter, i hope its a "perfect" day for you and yours

I will be spending Christmas alone and all the ads of family and friends having fun means I got a lot of sympathetic looks and comments along the lines of "how sad to be on your own at Christmas". I have always enjoyed Christmas and I will enjoy it this year, just in a different way. I know that when I first get up I will have a few tears missing my DH but then I will remember the good times we had and how he always made me laugh.

I reckon we've had a perfect Christmas if we end the day with nobody dead Sadly the thing that really says "Christmas" to me is the smell of cigar smoke because my grandfather always smoked them at Christmas. Nobody in the family smokes now and I can hardly encourage them to.

No I don't hate them. I know it's not real life. We do Christmas our way but sometimes get some ideas from the ads.

Ads is ads. In Ad world everything is always perfect; families, children home, clothes, job, holidays, sanitary wear, even laxatives. You name it, it is perfect in ad landThat is what advertising is all about.

We are told that consumers are more and more sophisticated in the way they read the media. Christmas advertising, like all the rest rolls over me like water off a ducks back.

If we were all to get lachrymose and upset every time an ad touched somewhere painful what would be left to form the substance of adverts? No families, it would upset those without families, ditto children jobs, slim figures, nice clothes, food, presumably adverts for laxatives might upset those who do not suffer from constipation.

Relax and do your best to live through the next few weeks as best you can.

Here is it yggdrasil. I love it too. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO6AUFdgcgU

Even if they do not use the words - its often implied in the advert that EVERYONE has a house full of friends and relatives all enjoying themselves. If one does the maths - its obvious that on a very simplistic level not everyone can have a house full - all those guests have got to come from somewhere!!

Also nowadays there are so many people working shifts or covering essential services be it health, police or even retail nowadays! There are many people who are also carers or have loved ones in care and they will be tied to that. It adds so much pressure to so many people to imply that everyone is having a happy carefree Christmas with all those they love nearby....its just not achievable. Our own is a very staggered affair - what with jobs, other families (in-laws) etc and elderly relatives we just do the best we can to see each other over the two or three weeks over the Christmas and New Year period....nobody needs the added guilt!

I like the one about the Polish man learning English so he can talk to his little granddaughter.
Can't remember what it was advertising though

Yes gettingonabit that's the one,with Sarah Alexander, if anyone here wants a real laugh at Christmas, I urge you to buy it, and dust it off and watch it every Christmas.