All The Best Christmas Adverts Of 2026 To Get You In The Festive Spirit

Festive ad campaigns have become as big a part of the lead-up to Christmas as dusting off the decorations from the loft, scribbling out cards for colleagues you can just about tolerate and stocking up on different flavours of Bailey’s you’d never go near the other 11 months out of the year.

So far this year, some of the biggest brands around have gone all out with their 2026 Christmas adverts, from the heartbreaking and hilarious to the glitzy and star-studded.

Here are all the ads you need to see from this year’s Christmas offerings so far…

While John Lewis was once considered the main event in the Christmas advert game, we reckon its sister brand Waitrose may have snatched the crown in recent years.

However, this time around, all that’s standing between Keira and Joe’s romance is Rivals heartbreaker Alex Hassell. Fortunately, the day is saved thanks, naturally, to a beef wellington.

Marks & Spencer certainly managed to catch our eye with its festive ad campaign this year.

Not only did they rope in Amandaland’s Lucy Punch as a glamorous new take on Mrs Claus, it also features Santa as you’ve never seen him before thanks to man of the moment James Norton.

When it comes to this year’s Christmas campaigns, M&S’ is a must-watch, just don’t blame us if you’re suddenly seeing Santa Claus in a whole new life…

For the landmark 20th instalment in John Lewis’ annual ad series, they brought in some serious star power, recruiting not just Slow Horses’ Kristin Scott Thomas and the voice of Paul Whitehouse, but a new recording from Sam Fender, fresh from breaking the record for the longest-running UK number one single of all time.

Reaction to this year’s John Lewis campaign may have been a little muted, but we still appreciated its message of savouring experiences over material gifts.

Then again, if we’re talking about Christmas ads with A-list star power, they don’t come much bigger than Shaun “Barry From EastEnders” Williamson and his new reimagining of a Slade festive classic.

Altogether now: “So here it is, Lidl Christmas…”

Yeah, alright, not the most cerebral of ads, is it? But we smiled all the same.

Taking an “if it ain’t broke” approach once again this year, Aldi clearly knew it was onto a winner with its Kevin The Carrot character these past few Christmases, and has got him in a whole new story for 2026.

And it’s an unprecedented tear-jerker.

In the low-cost supermarket’s new clip, Kevin’s child is sad that their “cauli-dog” has run away, with the ad centring around the search for it in the lead-up to the festive season (we wouldn’t usually feel the need to spoil something that clocks in at under a minute, but rest assured, the vegetable-inspired pooch is found).

Listen… it’s not that we’ve got anything against The BFG. He’s a perfectly friendly guy, it’s right there in the name. But we’re not quite sure at this point what he has to do with Christmas, or why this is Sainsbury’s’ third year in a row putting the Roald Dahl front and centre in its Christmas ad.

In his latest outing, the BFG has got the sniffles, so feels like he might have to give Christmas a miss this year – but the gang at Sainsbury’s has got other ideas.

Another festive ad with big-name celebs at the forefront in 2026 comes from Tesco.

In the heart-warming ad, two estranged friends – played by Line Of Duty’s Anna Maxwell Martin and Last One Laughing’s Roisin Conaty – are reunited right before the big day, and end up reminiscing on the road while travelling in a Tesco delivery truck, only for the magic of the season to bring them back into one another’s lives.

Rather than going for a heartwarming narrative or celebrity cameos, Asda’s festive advert for 2026 serves as a reminder of just how good it feels to save a few pennies during the Christmas shopping season.

Mixing high glamour and camp comedy, Boots’ new ad centres around a group of women who love their Christmas gifts (all available to buy from the high street chemist, naturally) so much they can’t put them down for the rest of the year.

But come on, we all know someone who’d wear their UV mask 24/7 if they could get away with it, right?

Yes, even the big-name fashion brands are going all out this year.

Everyone knows you can’t do Christmas without a certain Mariah Carey classic, and Gucci’s new ad sees the music legend herself celebrating this by crashing a festive celebration with a host of glamorous guests – including EastEnders’ own Bobby Brazier.

Well, at least she didn’t need to pretend to eat a prawn cocktail crisp this time, eh?

While we’re not getting a full-length Wallace And Gromit adventure this Christmas, at least Barbour’s ad means that the stop-motion duo are still giving us a new dose of festive cosiness in 2026.

For Barbour’s campaign, Wallace gifts his pooch a dog jacket from the brand for “walkies”, before being treated to his own stylish present.

Keep watching till the end for a cameo from another Aardman fave, too.

Sticking with the cosy nostalgia so many of us associate with this time of year, Prada has taken us right back to the golden age of animation in its new festive campaign.

Featuring celebs like Maya Hawke, Sadie Sink and Kelvin Harrison Jr, the Prada clip merges the real world with gorgeous animated figures in the style of old favourites many of us will be revisiting when we sit down with our families around the festive season.

In the last few years, Disney’s Christmas campaigns have become some of our favourites. And if the themes of growing up explored in countless Disney movies from Mary Poppins to Toy Story are guaranteed tear-jerkers for you, you might want to gather yourself before you hit play on this one.

Centring around a family who fear their eldest son is getting “too old” to join in their usual festive merriment, the boy then embarks on a journey of imagination thanks to “The Invisible Horse”, a sprinkle of magic and, naturally, a host of merchandise that just happens to be available at the Disney Store today.

The Works’ Christmas advert checks a lot of our boxes – most notably a very cute mascot, a heartwarming message about the importance of quality time around the festive period and a zeitgeist-y nod to the Netflix true crime TikTok trend from earlier this year.

The Unplug Bug “appears – and the screens just disappear”. Hopefully, there’s an equivalent for Candy Crush-loving boomer parents, right…?

Now, we wouldn’t normally include a brand that isn’t available here in the UK, but Walmart’s Christmas ad for 2026 is simply too good to leave out.

Riffing on The Muppet Christmas Carol, otherwise known as the greatest festive movie of all time, with a modern twist, the fuzzy gang bring us nostalgia, big laughs and some much-needed cuteness with their Walmart collab.