The holidays bring different emotions to everyone, ranging from pure exhilaration to nostalgia. The Christmas season has the potential to foster unity, deepen relationships, inspire generosity and so much more, if you let it.
The following five holiday commercials from Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Apple, Macy’s and Tesco display different aspects of what makes Christmas time so special — and they’re just fun to watch.
5 best holiday commercials of 2023
5. ‘A Holiday to Remember’ — Chevrolet
Chevrolet released this holiday ad in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association. The commercial, which feels like a five-minute short film, shows a teenager driving her grandmother around her childhood town in the family’s 1972 Chevy Suburban.
John Denver’s “Sunshine On My Shoulders” plays in the car as the grandmother begins to come back to herself.
The commercial seems to have struck a chord with people this holiday season, as one woman wrote in an X post, “So crazy, I was just at a Cinema yesterday and saw this, got teary eyed, and then CHEVROLET ran across the movie screen.” She added, “They got me, I really thought it was a trailer for a movie.”
4. ‘The World Needs More Santas’ — Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola’s 2023 Christmas film “portrays a city where hundreds of Santas walk the streets. Over the course of the film, we see the many Santas helping and supporting others, building to the understanding that, in this world full of Santas, we see a world full of kindness,” per the video’s description on YouTube.
This commercial advocates for everyone’s inner Santa and closes with the line, “The world needs more Santas.”
3. ‘Fuzzy Feelings’ — Apple
Apple captioned its commercial on YouTube, “Creativity has the power to change the way we see each other, and the world. Sometimes, seeing things through a new lens can make all the difference. You make the holidays.”
This commercial for the iPhone 15 Pro Max shows a young woman working under her grumpy boss in New York City. She deals with her stress by creating stop-motion projects where he’s the main character. When seeing him alone in a restaurant for dinner, the woman begins to see her boss more as another person than an evil character in her life.
The film closes with the text, “You make the holidays.”
2. ‘Hey, Santa’ — Macy’s
Macy’s describes the creative process for coming up with this heartwarming holiday ad on YouTube. Macy’s writes, “This year, we wanted to surprise Santa with a little something special by telling the magical story of a selfless little boy on a secret mission, sampling fragrances and flipping frying pans as he searches for the perfect gift; because Macy’s has the perfect gift for everyone on your list — even Santa.”
While this ad has aroused some frustration among parents on X, claiming it hurt their children’s belief in Santa, it contains the message that Christmas is a time for giving, not receiving.
1. ‘Become More Christmas’ — Tesco
When a father and his son visit a Tesco Express (a U.K. grocery store), the dad samples a Christmas panettone. Instantly, he bursts into a tree, and the more he partakes in the Christmas spirit, the more decorated he becomes.
The son rolls his eyes as the people around him become cheerier and cheerier, but eventually he sprouts into a little Christmas tree himself.
“Christmas is a strange time,” a creative director at the company that produced the ad, Felipe Serradourada Guimaraes, said. “Whether you love it from the minute Halloween ends, or the hour before Christmas dinner, the one thing we know is true, is that eventually everyone gets into it. It’s infectious,” per Creative Review.