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It’s around this time of year that Santa Claus raises his white-piped fists and launches mighty punches of present-buying panic into our faces, via the medium of Christmas television adverts. As always this year’s slew have attracted immediate criticism, and not wholly of the “but it’s only November!” variety; indeed, John Lewis’ much anticipated Xmas offering (the retailer won 2012’s IPA Effectiveness Award for last year’s ad), doesn’t even debut until tomorrow.

Yet John Lewis’ typically nostalgia-sodden festive themes took a battering last weekend courtesy of sister shop Waitrose, whose seasonal spot centered around the fact they’d given the £1m earmarked for Christmas marketing to charity instead (the slebs apparently waived their fees). Their reasoning was that current austerity meant it’d be more appropriate to forego the usual trite “snow machines” and “festive glitter” splurge, and after all, giving to charity is more in the original spirit of Christmas (although we doubt their X Factor-sandwiched launch slot was given to them for free). John Lewis, however, appears to have taken the move as a personal attack on its own strategy, with a source apparently revealing to Marketing Magazine that it had “raised eyebrows” in their camp, which is usually a euphemism for a spitting, cursing hissy-fit.

Of course, the fact that both Waitrose and John Lewis are owned by the same company means that those at the top will inevitably benefit whichever of these contrasting styles proves most successful, so perhaps it’s all just a storm in a tackily-decorated reindeer-daubed teacup.

Nearer the other end of the retail spectrum, Asda have also come in for criticism from those who say its Christmas ad, featuring a Mum slaving away without assistance in preperation for the big day like, well, an unpaid Workfare shelf-stacker , is sexist. The Drum asked a selection of ‘creatives’ (or ‘people who work in the advertising industry but like to pretend otherwise’) what they thought…