A Grandfather Tries to Mend Fences With His Brother in This Norwegian Christmas Spot

In this Christmas ad from Norwegian supermarket chain REMA, a grandfather tries to patch up a falling-out with his brother at Christmas-time.

He's being spurred on to do so by his critical teenage grand-daughter, who vetoes just about every line of the letter he's trying to write (which is both long-winded and not particularly apologetic). We don't know why exactly they stopped speaking, but it seems to be a fairly petty long-running feud: brother apparently sucked up to Dad and was Mom's "golden boy." This sparky humor saves the ad from being a soppy tearjerker and that makes it diferent from a lot of European Christmas fare -- although it still manages to be heartwarming enough when the two of them turn up on the brother's doorstep. The brand's tagline is "Simple is Better" and that's the message of the ad too; all it took was a journey and the words "Merry Christmas."

McCann Oslo created the ad, and it was directed by Fantefilm's Marius Holst. The soundtrack is Kishi Bashi's "It's Christmas But It's Not White Here In Our Town" -- which the agency says is a perfect match with the fact that the film was shot just outside Oslo, with no natural snow, in mid-November.