Pick up a penguin, or pretty much anything with a bar code. At least, that’s what John Lewis bosses are hoping we’ll do in the 41 days left until Christmas.

The department store chain’s festive advert shows an angelic-looking young boy wandering around London without an adult (quick, someone call social services).

Strangely, he has a live penguin in tow, which makes me suspect he’s a bit light-fingered. You know the sort - they visit the zoo and just have to leave with a souvenir...

Anyway, there are lots of sad, lingering looks at couples (from the penguin, not the kid) until Christmas Day when the boy unwraps... well, I won’t spoil the ending, in case you haven’t seen it, but it’s as mushy as chip-shop peas and as believable as the plot of the new sci-fi blockbuster Interstellar.

Love or hate it, it’s been a massive hit, pulling in millions of views on YouTube.

Well, buckle-up, because the next six weeks will be a bumpy ride, as we come under attack from thousands of perfume commercials, punctuated by flashes of perfect families wolfing down Christmas lunch while wearing party hats.

That’s how we know it’s fiction, because they’re not bickering about who should have won Strictly, or getting so hammered they pass out.

There’s a serious side to this, as retail sales in September were the worst since the depths of the recession in 2008, so shops are desperate for us to spend more.

Over at Mark & Spencer, they’ve gone for a fairy-themed festive advert.

Although there’s snow on the rooftops, two model-fairies lounge around in skimpy dresses but no cardies – in the background, you can almost hear their mums hissing: ‘You’re not going out dressed like that, are you?’.

The pair zoom around zapping fairy dust to reunite a lost cat with its owner and make it snow, which must be annoying for anyone who has to travel.

Meanwhile, in the Boots commercial, a knackered-looking nurse arrives home after an exhausting shift on Christmas night. She lets herself in, no doubt looking forward to polishing off that bottle of plonk in the fridge and slobbing out in front of X-Factor, only to find her sulky teenage daughter and ageing parents waiting to surprise her, meaning she’ll have to make up loads of beds and cook everyone’s dinner.

Debenhams’ offering shows a gang of precocious pre-schoolers rampaging through one of its stores, yanking clobber off shelves and leaving a gigantic mess in their wake.

Yet another rival ad shows a bunch of smiley people stuffing their faces while agreeing the lobster’s so good it “must be from M&S” but it turns out to be from Lidl and they turn out to be snobs.

My favourite is the Aldi one, which flicks between revellers tucking into yummy delicacies and quaffing bubbly, and ends with something we’d all like to find under the tree – Jools Holland.

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