Two years ago, my colleague Joe Cunningham wrote about the beautiful ad that Chevrolet did for Christmas with a man who is sad at the holidays because his wife has died. The daughter then lovingly has the wife’s car — which is under wraps in the barn, unused for a while — restored, unbeknownst to the father, to surprise him and bring back those memories of the love of his wife he so misses. “It’s what mom would’ve wanted,” the daughter says.
It was a wonderful ad, at a time during the pandemic when we’d been through so much with lockdowns and a change in society and the White House, with mandates that may have separated us from our family members. It was a situation that we never would have thought could happen but did. We certainly needed some extra uplifting.
Now, their new ad for this year pulls on some of those same heartstrings, and I have to admit, yes, I cried at the end because it was so beautiful and sweet. Have the tissues ready because “A Holiday to Remember” is likely to get you too.
It has beautiful photography and was filmed in middle America, in Holly, Michigan, with talk of the Bittersweet Cafe and Saginaw. It reminds us of all those wonderful things that bring joy to our lives and spark our memories as a family gathers together for Christmas. The grandfather sadly admits there are days the grandmother is not fully there because of her Alzheimer’s: “There are some days where she doesn’t even recognize me,” he tells the daughter. The granddaughter is listening and has a brainstorm to make sure it is a “good day.”
She then takes the grandmother to some of the surroundings of her past in the 1972 Chevrolet Suburban, to her high school, to the house where she used to live, playing John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” reminding her as they pass the drive-in how she packed all the grandkids into the car to go there. Gradually, it helps bring back all those memories of her life.
Most of all, it awakens her to the memory of the love for her husband, and when that moment comes in the ad, that’s where they got me. The ending with the husband realizing that his wife is there again is so pure that it touches your heart.
It also comes at a time when many are being pressed economically with Bidenflation, and it’s again a time of political division. We don’t know what will happen in the ensuing year or with the upcoming election in 2024. But if there’s anything that brings us through such times and gives us the strength to move forward, come what may, into the future, it’s the love of those around us; it’s the special grace that our relationships bring to our lives. We are lucky if we have those who love us around us. We understand the hardships. But we hope for those moments of pure joy like the one at the end of the ad, when those we love embrace us, and all is whole again.
