This is the time of year when John Lewis usually comes into its own, with a guaranteed tear-jerker of a festive advert causing families up and down the country to reach for the tissues.
And true to form they did it again, this time recruiting the talents of legendary singer-songwriter, Elton John, to star in the emotional ad depicting his rise from prodigious pianist to global megastar.
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But it would seem customers are being brought to tears for a completely different reason now, after a bad batch of advent calendars left them less than impressed.
The disgruntled shoppers say they were shocked and upset after they opened December 2 to find there was a mistake with how the door was numbered.
Rather then telling customers exactly how many days they had left until the 25th, the Woodmansterne calendar actually told them how many were left until December 18.
Not ideal.
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Needless to say they took to Twitter and shared photographs of the botched calendars to show how disappointed they were, after forking out £5 on the pricey item.
Helen Ward took wrote: "Hey @jlandpartners - my advent calendar is disappointingly telling me there's 16 days to go?!"
John Lewis responded and apologised for the mistake. They wrote: "Our apologies, Helen. As I'm sure you've heard, this is a manufacturing issuing that the supplier is now aware of. If you'd like to return it to us, we'll refund you in full."
Emma Kyffin said her kids were happy with the mistake as it meant Christmas will come early this year.
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She wrote: "@jlandpartners slight inaccuracy in your advent calendar on day 2 - kids excited to hear Christmas coming a week earlier than usual!"
But according to other customers, December 2 was just the tip of the ice berg.
Nick Macey said: "Just took a sneeky peek at the other doors and they are wrong too. Not impressed." (sic)
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Another Twitter user then said: "Hey John Lewis, this advent calendar literally is only pictures but the maths isn't right so it's just a bit of a slap in the face really?"
That's right, it doesn't even have any chocolates in it. None. It's just pictures, which is surely a bigger issue than the fact they messed the days up.
The calendar's manufacturer has issued the following apology in a statement on their Twitter page.
And John Lewis told the i it would refund customers who had bought the faulty calendar.
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A spokesperson said: "We're so sorry for the disappointment caused when customers opened up this advent calendar. The supplier is working closely with us and other retailers to put this right as quickly as possible, and for any customer who has bought one of these advent calendars from John Lewis we will offer them a full refund."
No chocolates. It's just upsetting.
Featured Image Credit: Twitter