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If you’ve managed to stray from the streaming platforms recently, you’ll have quickly noticed it’s officially beginning. The inescapable sleuth of Christmas adverts.
Asda has gone with a takeover of gnomes, Kevin the Carrot is back at Aldi and Coca Cola’s got its truck on the roads – with Lidl even making a rival.
And while Waitrose has launched a mystery whodunit, the biggie has now been released: the John Lewis advert.
Although that tends to be the favourite every Christmas, a man has released an alternative ad for this year that some people think is far more heartbreaking.
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Sam Clegg creates his own charity videos every festive season and this year’s ‘John Lewis Inspired Christmas Advert’ is entitled Send Me a Sign.
With both the video and song created ‘from scratch on a budget of less than £500’ he is hoping raise awareness and help bring support and companionship to elderly people ‘facing loneliness every day’.
In the ad, we see an older guy sitting in the hills with a little red robin, feeding it maggots before heading home where a TV shows a storm warning for the evening.
Seeming to live alone, he then returns the next day but his little bird pal isn’t sat waiting in their usual spot. Instead, the man spots it laying injured in the grass.
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He takes the bird home, keeping it warm and even giving it a setting at the dinner table before returning it to nature the next day.
Heartbreakingly, we then learn that 40 years before, this was the same little place in the hills where he gave his partner a teddy with the message: “I love you Robyn.”
Back in the present day, the man then visits a grave for ‘Robyn Jones’ who died this year as he looks back on a photo of them in their spot.
As Clegg’s ‘Send Me a Sign’ single plays in the background, the man becomes emotional.
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This moving Christmas ad has been created ‘to make a meaningful difference’ with every 79p purchase of his song going to UK-registered charities Re-engage and Friends of the Elderly.
Users commented to say they were ‘sobbing watching this over and over’ as others called it the ‘best advert’.
Many found that the video really ‘resonates so much’ as one put: “It’s just so beautifully done and the words are soulful and beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time.”
Plenty congratulated Clegg on the video as he wrote in the comments: “Hi everyone, just to confirm, this is a homemade, John Lewis-inspired advert that I created 100% myself for under £500. I also wrote and performed the charity single 'Send Me a Sign' to raise money for Re-engage and Friends of the Elderly. Let me know if you enjoyed this homemade John Lewis Christmas advert for 2024.”
Jess Battison