John Lewis has responded to a bit of a backlash after releasing this year's Christmas advert.
This time around they've decided to do one about a boy who gets his grandma to buy him a 'Grow Your Own Perfect Christmas Tree' kit which ends up giving his family a giant venus fly trap to deal with.
While the plant grows tall and develops plenty of chomping mouths, including one which attempts to take a bite out of the dog, it eventually gets put outside and replaced with an actual Christmas tree that won't try to devour their beloved pet.
However, the boy takes his presents outside and has the venus fly trap, which John Lewis has named 'Snapper', devour the wrapping paper before spitting the gifts back out at their intended recipient.
Advert
The whole family gets in on this activity and the advert ends with Snapper spitting everyone's Christmas presents at them, having eaten the wrappings.
If that all sounded really damn weird that's because it is, but when it comes to Christmas adverts you just sort of go with the weirdness that gets conjured up each year.
At least that's what you should do, but a few people were unhappy enough to give the advert a bit of a backlash and get John Lewis to respond.
Some viewers were upset at the lack of a dad in this family, taking to social media to ask John Lewis 'where's the DAD' and that 'it would have been nice to see the dad or even grandad' as 'fathers play just as an important role in their children's lives'.
Advert
Someone else grumbled that 'once again the dad has been stereotyped into the absentee-father role'.
However, John Lewis has responded to those wanting to know why this ad had no dad.
It said: "This ad shows a mum and a grandma.
"We always attempt to show a broad representation of British life, single parent families make up nearly a quarter of families with dependent children in the UK and they aren’t often shown on TV."
Advert
While there were some people calling the company out for the lack of an ad dad, others praised John Lewis for depicting a family like the one they had grown up in.
"Thanks for representing our family unit in this year's ad," one person said, while another said 'thank you for representing all families'.
According to John Lewis the point of the advert is 'a family forging its own Christmas traditions' so you're not really meant to think too hard about it.
Like, for instance, the fact that Snapper the venus fly trap wouldn't have survived his trip into the freezing cold garden outside.
Advert
At least the people complaining about the lack of a dad managed to air their grievances to the right account instead of bugging that one guy on Twitter who is also called John Lewis.
Joe Harker