Wednesday’s Window Into The Week: John Lewis, Where Love Is

The John Lewis 2025 Christmas advert dropped, and considering it’s only been out since Tuesday 4th November, it’s already blown up, with people absolutely loving it and flooding TikTok with their own emotional stories stitched to it. Honestly, the whole thing hits in that weird middle place between cozy nostalgia and an unexpected emotional gut-punch. This year’s story circles around a dad, his teenage son, and, kind of hilariously, kind of beautifully, a vinyl record. The son hands over a 12-inch of an old ’90s dance track, and the moment the needle hits the groove, the dad just… disappears into his memories. You see these flashes of who he used to be: sweaty club nights, pulsing lights, music so loud it vibrates through the screen. The song basically yanks him straight back into another lifetime.

What’s clever is that the advert doesn’t try to hide the awkward gap between the dad and the son. Their conversations are short, a bit stiff, the way families can get when everyone’s busy or unsure how to say the real stuff out loud. The record becomes this tiny, unexpected bridge, a way of saying “I know who you are, even the parts I’ve never seen.” And as the dad gets lost in that memory-cloud of dance floors and old friends, the advert cuts in these soft, almost blurry scenes of him with his son over the years. It’s like the past and present overlap for a second, and you suddenly get why this gift matters so much.

The tagline,“If you can’t find the words, find the gift”, lands a bit too well. It’s simple, almost cheesy, but also painfully accurate. Not everyone is great at talking about love, especially parents who were raised to keep feelings kind of… tidied away. The advert leans into that truth without making it tragic. It’s more like: “Hey, love doesn’t always sound like a big speech. Sometimes it just looks like a vinyl someone actually took time to choose.”

But here’s the twist people keep arguing about: the whole thing is unexpectedly un-Christmassy. No snowdrifts, no sleigh bells, no magical woodland creatures. Just a rave track, a memory montage, and some fairly raw emotion. It feels bold, or maybe slightly odd, depending on how attached you are to the usual John Lewis formula. There’s also this sense that the advert is purposely avoiding the shiny, picture-perfect holiday vibe, which gives it a kind of grounded charm… but also makes it feel like it’s poking tradition a little.

They even released a limited-edition vinyl of the song used in the ad, a sort of collector’s moment that pairs the original ’90s anthem with a modern, stripped-down version. And instead of the profits disappearing into some corporate vortex, the money goes toward supporting young people who’ve grown up in care. That detail gives the whole campaign a warmer, more meaningful glow, like the sentiment isn’t just an aesthetic choice.

Watching it on a random Wednesday honestly made me pause in a way I didn’t expect. It reminded me how weirdly hard it is to say certain things to the people you care about, and how objects, records, letters, half-silly gifts, sometimes do the heavy emotional lifting for us. The advert isn’t perfect, and it definitely leans into sentiment, but it’s also messy, familiar, and kind of brave. And maybe that’s what makes it feel real: a reminder that love doesn’t always speak clearly, but it shows up anyway… sometimes in a beat-drop from 1993.

I would also like to state that I have tried everything to get rid of the buttons bellow, as I have not set up those specific apps yet, but unfortunately nothing has worked. Please ignore, thank you!