Am I the only one not moved at all by John Lewis’s Christmas ad?

The two-minute cartoon of a bear experiencing his first Christmas thanks to his devoted friend, the hare, premiered during The X Factor, seemingly eliciting a communal ‘aaahhh’ from the entire nation.

Except me. For while it’s designed to evoke an idealised image of Christmas that, deep down inside, we all hanker for, it seems simply infantile to me.

Those of us with children in their tweens and teens will remember the hell that is watching endless U and PG films with them and feel a sense of relief and release that it’s finally over.

It’s the one part of my children’s childhood that I do not cherish, with the sole exception of Will.i.am's brief star turn as Moto Moto the hippo who’s in lust with Jada Pinkett Smith’s “chunky” Gloria in Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa.

Cartoons for adults seem all wrong – I’ve never watched a single episode of The Simpsons, South Park or Family Guy, and I never intend to. 

They remind me of those adult women who collect dolls and teddy bears or adult men who avidly follow Dr Who or dress like Captain Kirk and Mr Spock from Star Trek. There’s something weirdly childish about these people, as if they haven’t grown-up and don’t want to, retreating from the real world.

Most of us grow out of childish pleasures such as cartoons and when you have young children, it’s quite a challenge to be transported back to the world of animated animals.

But parents tolerate it to enhance their children’s enjoyment (and anyway you can always surreptitiously read the paper) whereas actively choosing to watch a children’s film or TV programme as an adult is a whole different ball game.

The John Lewis ad is simply a festive example of the growing media trend towards the dumbing down of adults to the level of small children, and the evidence is in the vast number of ads that use puppets (Wonga, for example) or polar bears (Bird’s Eye and Muller Rice) or chocolate finger figures (Cadbury’s), and this one’s a cynical tactic to bring back such a nostalgia for idealistic childhood Christmases we won’t be able to resist the urge to recreate one this Christmas – and spend a fortune doing so in John Lewis stores.

But as even the storyline to The Bear and the Hare is reduced to the level of five-year-olds, the people behind it may have made a slight marketing error, as five-year-olds don’t tend have a great deal of cash to flash.

The only bit of the ad I do like is the accompanying cover of Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know by Lily Allen, although that’s been muted by the multiple copies of plaintive female voices singing on everyone else’s Christmas ads.

Come on, John Lewis. You’re a shop for grown-ups. Next Christmas, I’ll give you my heart if you’ll just treat adults like grown-ups.