Asda Christmas advert

I have worked in retail all my life and I have to admit to being a bit Bah Humbug!
I think this was mainly as I did all the running about before Christmas then spent Christmas day still running about to make sure the family enjoyed the day then back to work Boxing Day. However, I left work last month and my first Grandchild is one on the 22nd December so really looking forward to it this year!

That will be lovely Grannybags.

OK ... GN divides into 2 camps. The we love xmas camp. And the rest of us. Some of us are bereaved, some of us will not be with our families, some of us will be on our own and some will feel obliged to spend time with relatives or inlaws that we dislike. The twain should not meet - there is little centre ground.
I will go off and start a "I dread Christmas, 2012" thread, for mutual support and a place to Baa and Humbug
Feel free to start an I Love thread folks.

It reminds me of Christmas in our house during the eighties. I loved every minute of it despite the hard work.

My favourite Christmas advert this year is the Argos alien family.

Yes - especially the nose trimmers for auntie Gladys bit at the end!

Has anyone else seen the John Lewis ad for this year yet?

I think it's what Americans might call "kinda cute". Or as a Tweeter remarked: nothing controversial, no sexism – where's the fun in that?

Oh it's sooo sweet!

vid at bottom of page

I think adverts like that, and the Asda one, help to keep us sane at Xmas.

Clever advertising people!

That brought tears to my eyes!

Although in my DS's house he is the major cook, he is a stay-at-home daddy too. For anything festive he and his wife share the duties, I daren't help as
I just get shouted at to leave the kitchen. So I lay the table. DIL's mother is the main cook festive or otherwise, and very good at it she too.
Even in this day, I think it is still the womenfolk that cook for Xmas though I do think nowadays men help a lot more. It's a shame the ad doesn't show that - also present buying is a joint effort these days.
Do you know I have no memory of my father doing anything in the kitchen, going shopping, putting us kids to bed etc etc. It changed with our generation my ex was a very much a hands-on father.

I should have thought that a definition of insanity is a belief that an advertisement keeps you sane.

Whatever you say absent.

I just find them fun and calming.

I think the advertisers want us relish, and enjoy, the run up to Christmas.

Yes, I like this John Lewis one. It's not in yer face and full of useless gadgets, but simple and seasonal

Hate Walmart/Asda, but I thought the advert was funny, too. seasider is quite right about the extra publicity - the cynic in me wonders if they did it on purpose...

The Asda advert was certainly relevant to families in my Mum's day (when Mum would involve me in everything, but brother and Dad allowed to sit down with their feet up). However, my DH has always pulled his weight at busy family times (though I'm happier if he doesn't venture into the kitchen, except when bearing a port and lemon!), and though writing cards etc. isn't his forte, he does do a lot of the other chores.
Now we are both retired, we share a lot of the work, and I am still having to adjust to his input!

I think that the Asda advert is fine and still relevant today, Mum does the Lion's share and that is how it is. I love the John Lewis advert really sweet, and no controversy there. My DH always pulls his weight , he is a naturally helpful man, but I think a lot of women want to be in charge to make sure it is done their way.

DH loves helping at Christmas, especially preparing all the veg but it has not always been plain sailing

Christmas Eve 1988 - DH returned from the pub and announced he was going to get all the veg prep done ready for Christmas Day. No probs until he decided to try out the waste disposal unit in our newly installed kitchen. He switched it on, shoved all the peelings down the spout and watched everything slowly disappearing until there was a horrible grating and clunking noise and the whole thing ground to a halt. At the same time I noticed he wasn't wearing the gold signet ring that my mother had given him as an early Christmas present which had belonged to my stepfather who had recently died.....You know where this is going

After mega panic, cut fingers and pleading with the almighty, a tiny, mangled lump of gold something or other was tweezered out of the drain hole. DH, ever the optimist, spent two hours in his workshop trying to reconstruct the impossible and then spent Christmas Day wearing a tiny instrument of torture.

The following summer we had some jewellery stolen from a hotel bedroom and claimed on our insurance. Mum was very understanding about the ring

jO5 Advertisers want you to buy the products that they are advertising. They really don't care about your enjoyment – unless it makes you want to buy more stuff.

NShSh!

If we enjoy the adverts we are less likely to slate the stores for starting so early and more likely to spend. If we were all on the I hate Xmas thread, the stores wouldn't make much in the way of profits.

But I'm sure you know best.

But I wish you'd stop talking down to me.

jO5 I'm not the one talking down to you. It's advertising agencies who talk down to you and everyone else who sees/hears/reads their advertisements. I don't think the creative teams at the agencies have changed much since the days when I knew quite a few of them, apart from not drinking so much or at all at lunch time, and their contempt for the general public, especially women, was palpable.

I don't think that there is an I hate Xmas thread, although there is one about dreading it – covering various reasons for that feeling from isolation to separation.

What century is Asda in? Both my sons are great cooks. They tell me that they're better than I am, so that lets me off. That woman in the ad is clearly a stay at home mum which is a rarity in the 21st century. My DiLs are hard-working career women but manage also to be wonderful mums.