I just don't get it

Recently an ad for a top retailer aired on TV and since then it has brought tears to the eyes of (from what I can gather) most of the UK population.  For some reason me and another person and various other people who I don't know but whose opinions I find credible (via twitter) feel the complete opposite.  The ad itself features a little boy desperately wishing his days away until Christmas Day where we are led to believe (by the huge amount of presents at the end of his bed) that it's all about what he will receive, when in fact it's about him being more excited at  presenting his parents with the gift he's been hiding in his wardrobe.  Nice idea, the whole "it's better to give than receive" etc but I can't understand why this is tugging on so many heart-strings?

This ad is being lauded as being creatively brilliant (by the ad world), beautifully shot and advertising at its best.  What I think is that it's a Christmas ad for a great shop.  Personally I think their ad last year resonated more with me (creatively and emotionally); it didn't make me cry but made me feel warm inside and more importantly - I should start putting my Christmas list together and do my entire shop at John Lewis!

But what I do find most odd is that the daily TV ads for starving children in war torn countries and the desperately heart-wrenching NSPCC ads don't have the same outpouring of tears/tugging at heart-strings that this ad seems to have created.  Now these ads do make me cry, proper can't breathe sobbing at the inhumanity of their desperately sad lives.  However they don't have an expensive media spot in the middle of XFactor.

So being less cynical I started thinking that a lot of people are in a different situation than they were this time last year.  Money is tight, inner city communities have broken down in front of our eyes, society has shifted and has made us feel less secure.  There now seems more than an ever an elite few with all the riches one could ever imagine and the remainder wondering how they'll meet their mortgage repayment this month or heat their homes with rising fuels prices.  Maybe collectively and unconsciously we as a country just want to feel safe again and this ad has made us wistful for simpler times.

Finally a few angry tweeters in response to a certain bloke who also can't understand this outpouring have said to him, "it's because you have no children, you wouldn't understand".  This (not very nice) argument has been thrown at me more times than you can possibly imagine.  Am I (or that bloke) less compassionate and less in touch with children and family life because I don't have children? I think not.  I decided against children because personally I feel there are more than enough people populating this over burdened planet (for reasons they have no control over i.e. barely literate African nations, religious groups and their anti-contraception mind controlling belief systems).  

I have all the connections I could possibly ask for with family and children.  I have two of the most beautiful nieces, another two nieces and nephews by marriage and an abundance of friends whose great kids I love hanging out with and most importantly I LOVE Christmas.

Quite simply this ad isn't worth the accolades.