There's no doubt that the annual John Lewis Christmas advert is a highly anticipated staple of the festive season. Stories of friendship, kindness and giving, paired with an emotive soundtrack and wrapped into a festive advertising campaign have been moving viewers to tears since 2007.
This year is no different. Shining a light on children in care, the retailer has released its latest instalment 'The Beginner', featuring a clumsy skateboarder and his new foster daughter, set to a slowed-down version of All The Small Things.
Each year, John Lewis introduces new loveable characters - whether human, animal, alien or other - often making them into cute cuddly toys or other forms of merchandise. Monty the Penguin and Moz the Monster became huge hits with kids.
READ MORE: John Lewis sent two-word messages over Christmas 2022 advert as viewers say they 'didn't want to cry'
Other popular adverts include 2011's story of a little boy who can't wait for Christmas Day, but not because he wants to open his presents, and the tale of Buster the Boxer who can't wait to test out his family's new Christmas gift, released in 2016.
Here, we've compiled a rundown of all the Christmas ads and their soundtracks since the first one screened in 2007. Do you have a favourite? Let us know in the comments below.
2022: The Beginner
This year's advert raises awareness of children in care with the story of a middle-aged man learning to skateboard. The 90-second ad, set to a cover of Blink 182’s All the Small Things by US artist Mike Geier, shows the man as he struggles painfully to master skateboarding in the build-up to Christmas.
Viewers are left questioning the motive behind his perseverance until the final scene, which shows a social worker arriving at his door with young teenager Ellie, who has arrived at her new foster home carrying her skateboard.
The ad was created with long-term collaborators adam&eveDDB, with input from partner charities Action for Children and Who Cares? Scotland. It is almost entirely devoid of product placement except for two brief glimpses of the retailer’s Lewis Bear toy.
2021: Unexpected Guest
In the 2021 edition of the ad, space traveller Skye crash lands at the height of festivities in the woods near the home of 14-year-old Nathan, who introduces her to the traditions of eating mince pies, decorating the tree and, to her slight confusion, wearing novelty jumpers.
The soundtrack was provided by 20-year-old London singer and songwriter Lola Young, who performs a cover of Together In Electric Dreams, originally released by Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder in 1984.
2020: Give A Little Love
This stripped-back ad campaign focused on acts of kindness during the coronavirus pandemic. In a departure from the blockbuster clips of previous years, the ad consisted of a series of short stories, all depicting random acts of kindness.
John Lewis said it had considered shelving the production of its highly-anticipated annual marketing campaign altogether in 2020 due to the pandemic - but said charity partners persuaded it to go ahead.
The advert starts with a boy whose football has become stuck in a tree and moves through a series of acts of kindness, switching from live-action to various styles of animation. John Lewis said it hoped that the nine different vignettes created by eight different artists would also celebrate the “creative industries which had been hit particularly hard" during the pandemic.
It was released to mark National Kindness Day and featured an original song called A Little Love, written and performed by singer Celeste.
2019: Excitable Edgar
In 2019, an exuberant young dragon called Edgar almost derailed festivities in a medieval village with his fire-breathing excitement. Clips show him accidentally melting the ice rink, reducing a snowman to a puddle and setting fire to a Christmas tree as his anxious friend Ava looks on.
The advert, the first in partnership with Waitrose, was set to a recording of REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling by Dan Smith from the band Bastille and was filmed over two weeks in Budapest with a live extras cast of around 100 people.
2018: The Boy And The Piano
In 2018, the Christmas campaign took its first celebrity turn by making Sir Elton John the star of the ad. His performance of Your Song was the soundtrack to a festive-tinged retrospective of his life and career.
The ad opens with the superstar tapping out the opening notes to Your Song, his first major hit, and ends with the four-year-old Elton running down the stairs on Christmas morning and unwrapping his grandmother’s gift of her piano.
2017: Moz The Monster
This advert featured the developing friendship between seven-year-old Joe and his imaginary monster under the bed, Moz - a friendship based on a mutual love of late-night Scalextric and piggyback games.
Moz eventually realises that their late nights must end when he sees the toll they are taking on sleepy Joe. Joe wakes on Christmas morning to find a clumsily wrapped present of a night light under the tree.
The ad was set to a cover of Beatles song Golden Slumbers by Manchester band Elbow.
2016: Buster The Boxer
In 2016, the John Lewis advert told the story of Buster, who makes a break for the new Christmas trampoline after having to suffer watching foxes, a badger, squirrels and a hedgehog trying it out first.
The advert was accompanied by a cover of Randy Crawford’s One Day I’ll Fly Away by electronic trio Vaults.
2015: Man On The Moon
The 2015 advert is perhaps the biggest tearjerker of them all. Man On The Moon shows a young girl who spots a lonely old man on the moon one night.
She decides to send him a telescope to give him a connection to Earth. The partnership with Age UK had the tagline: “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas.”
Norwegian artist Aurora provided the touching soundtrack with a cover of Half The World Away by Oasis.
2014: Monty The Penguin
In 2014, the star of the advert was Monty, an imaginary character created by a boy called Sam, whose favourite toy is a stuffed penguin.
Monty hopes for love at Christmas and is overjoyed when he gets a gift - a female penguin toy who happily arrives under the tree for him on Christmas Day.
The ad features a Tom Odell cover of John Lennon’s Real Love.
2013: The Bear And The Hare
The Bear and The Hare is an animated tale with a soundtrack of Lily Allen’s cover of Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know. The tale opens with the line: “There was once an animal who had never seen Christmas.”
The advert goes on to show the friendship between a bear and a hare until the bear departs to hibernate when snow starts to fall.
The hare thinks of the perfect Christmas present for the bear, an alarm clock to allow him to wake up and experience Christmas Day.
2012: The Journey
The Journey depicts a snowman traversing mountains and motorways to get to a shop to buy his snow girlfriend a scarf to keep her warm.
The soundtrack is Gabrielle Aplin’s cover of The Power Of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and the tagline is: “Give a little more love this Christmas.”
2011: The Long Wait
The 2011 ad shows a young fed-up boy impatiently counting down to Christmas.
At the end of the advert, viewers realise that he really wanted Christmas to hurry up so that he could give presents to his parents. The tagline is: "For gifts you can't wait to give".
The ad is set to Slow Moving Millie’s cover of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want, originally by The Smiths.
2010: A Tribute To Givers
The 2011 ad showed a number of different gift givers in the lead up to Christmas. It featured parents sneaking a rocking horse upstairs while their children watched television, a man struggling to wrap a pair of candlesticks, a mechanic attempting to wrap a teapot at work and a young boy hanging a stocking on his dog’s kennel.
Ellie Goulding’s cover of Sir Elton John’s Your Song was the soundtrack to this ad.
2009: Sweet Child O’ Mine
This was the first of the store’s Christmas campaigns created by advertising agency Adam & Eve, now adam&eveDDB, and the first to feature a musical cover by a current artist, on this occasion a Taken By Trees version of Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses.
The ad shows children opening gifts for adults including a laptop, coffee machine and handbag, followed by the tagline: “Remember how Christmas used to feel? Give someone that feeling.”
2008: From Me To You
Culminating in the tagline: “If you know the person, you’ll find the present,” it shows a succession of characters followed by a matching gift.
The soundtrack is a cover of The Beatles’ From Me To You recorded for the campaign, with vocals by Matt Spinner, a member of the John Lewis IT department, and its music society.
2007: Shadows
The ad shows a group of people stacking a pile of gifts including a desktop lamp, a computer and a leather satchel in an empty room. The finished product ends up creating a shadow that looks like a woman walking her dog through the snow, accompanied by the tagline: “Whoever you’re looking for this Christmas.”
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