Christmas parties are always a risk. For every booze-fuelled knees-up with friends on Christmas Eve, there’s a misfire where the conversation doesn’t flow, you’re stuck in a corner talking to somebody’s boring ex-husband, or somebody imbibes a bit too much of the Christmas spirit and starts crying about the mental health issues of their Shih Tzu, Polly.
The Waitrose Christmas ad this year, on the other hand, is one party I’d kill for an invite to: it has tinsel up the wazoo, all the eye-wateringly expensive food you could possibly want and a bathtub full of booze. Hooray!
A couple, presumably in the run-up to Christmas, are sitting in a living room not so much festooned as sprayed with festive décor. As the bell rings, they panic; all the guests are apparently so keen to arrive, they’ve come early (surely, this has never happened before in the history of house parties).
As the night kicks off, the Waitrose food flows abundantly – the bottle of champagne never loses its neat little green velvet ribbon (a Christmas miracle right there), people turn up laden with everything from turkey crowns to mince pies, and everything is soundtracked by the synth-heavy tones of Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough, because, well, we just can't, can we.
Bizarrely, Graham Norton also makes a roughly five-second appearance (would love to know that fee), leading to the immortal line, as somebody spots him across the room: “Is that…”
“Golden Buche de Noel? Yes it is!” Groan.
It’s almost as cheesy as the immaculately presented cheeseboard, but not quite as crackers as the community support officers knocking on the door and saying (in unison, of course): “excuse me, we’ve had multiple reports of a… Florentine-inspired Panettone?”
It's all very silly, but the advert (created by Saatchi & Saatchi and shot by photographer and director Autumn De Wilde) pokes gentle, affectionate fun at the Waitrose-shopping chattering classes and their Christmas excess (Golden Buche de Noel, by the way, is basically a sort of blonde chocolate caramel yule log. It's insane).
If nothing else, it provides plenty of party inspo for the upcoming festive season – and if the prospect of eating chocolate with mates in the bathroom you’ve managed to lock yourself in doesn’t sound like your idea of a good night, that's where the bathtub full of ice and alcohol comes in. As Norton says at the end, "When the food's good, everything's good." We'll raise a Golden Buche de Noel to that.
