This Apple Christmas ad is sad, happy, funny all in one and it’s beautiful

Apple has uploaded a Christmas-themed ad onto their YouTube channel, and it’s certainly a tear-jerking one. Named as “Holiday — The Surprise”, the video is just over 3 minutes long, and follows young family as they return home for the holidays.

It’s an Apple ad, so obviously there are Apple products present throughout the short film. The kids are kept quiet on multiple occasions by watching movies on the iPad (Apple: buy your kids an iPad this holiday season if you want any peace), and you can also see them drawing on the iPad with an Apple Pencil at certain points of the video.

But if you pay attention to the soundtrack playing in the background, it’s actually the iconic soundtrack of Pixar’s animated movie, Up, playing. As the story unfolds, it turns out that the grandfather in the video is still mourning the loss of his wife (the grandmother)—hence, the soundtrack.

And towards the end of the video, the kids prepare a present for their grandfather—a short slideshow of their grandmother, along with a photo of them all together. On an iPad.

The cynical side of me thinks that this is a blatantly manipulative effort on Apple’s part, using sentimental side in all of us to push products. But on the other hand, ads like these are certainly preferable to the in-your-face approach that many companies take. And in spite of myself, I couldn’t help but to stay engrossed on the ad as it played, even though I knew that it was ultimately an advertisement for the iPad.

And don’t tell me you didn’t tear up a little, towards the end.

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