I can’t articulate it, but somehow this explains why Germany started two world wars.
Mysteriously I had exactly the same thought.
I liked it. A bit cold, to be sure, but all for a good purpose. The doctor son, perhaps a surgeon, rolling up his sleeves as the roast goose is presented at table was a nice touch. What I’d like to know is what GENIUS at Edeka thought this was a good idea? Do you think it prompted a lot of angry responses against the company for being so cold and calculating? Norman Rockwell it ain’t.
No you didn’t.
The two are not even remotely comparable.
I thought it was funny. I don’t care if he is manipulative or not, that’s not the point, it’s a short story that sets you up, takes you on a brief journey and then presents the pay off.
Isn’t getting on the plane easier? Assume a taxi ride to the airport…
It should have ended with one of the kids saying “since everyone already thinks you’re dead…” as she picks up a heavy candlestick and the crowd advances on him.
Then there’s this one. Publix knows how to hit you in the heart and make you run to their deli to get their fried chicken.
When the family saw the table all laid out, I thought the old guy had prepared it for them before he died, knowing that his passing would bring them all together. Still terribly glurgey, but at least it doesn’t violate any moral codes. When he appeared, I thought the appropriate ending would have been the family dumping him at an old folks home like they were taking out the trash.
If that’s the old guy’s way of making a point, I can see why his kids didn’t visit him in the first place.
Probably even more people than would want to.
Can you imagine explaining that to your boss?
‘I need time off to attend my father’s funeral.’
‘Your father.’
‘Yes.’
‘The one who supposedly died last Christmas.’
‘Yes. But it’s for real, this time.’
'Get back to work.
The commercial left me a bit cold, but these posts made it worthwhile! Good on you both. 
I’m of mixed feelings. Yes, the grandfather is being manipulative, but what’s really sad is that it looks like he actually needs to be that manipulative. He’s got how many kids, all of them apparently quite successful in their fields, and none of them is able to make it for Christmas, year after year after year? How many years of “We’ll make it happen somehow next year, I promise” has the poor geezer endured? And yet, they all can actually change their plans to get there, as evidenced by the fact that they actually did, and on short notice even. So why had they never managed to adjust their plans before?
Or conversely, fly Grandpa out to see them?
Look, I love my dad. I go to their house every year for Christmas. I make time to see him. It’s what you do.
It’s not a one way street. It’s not Grandpa sitting at home, looking forlornly out the window for the visitors that never come. There’s something wrong with the relationship at the core that makes it what it is.
As evidenced by what Grandpa does to make them come visit.
More as an aside than anything else, but for all those advocating “grandpa visit them” -
Doesn’t it occur to you that the children may be rather geographically spread out?
That’s not a bad point, but there are more possibilities than ‘everyone else in the family travels to Opa.’ My in-laws had three kids, who live in three widely-spaced areas, and their approach has been to rotate among their kids, giving them the decision of whether to celebrate with them or not, and in their own home or at the in-laws’.
The old man could travel to one kid/family and everyone could meet up there, or he celebrates with one kid/family on a rotating basis, or they all meet up at a different time that works for everyone, or he just talks to them individually and says how much he misses being with them although he realizes how busy their lives are, and asks what he can do to get with them in a way that accommodates their hectic lives.
He looks sadly out the window at the neighbors as their relatives pile joyously out of the car – what did they do differently that makes their family want to visit them? My theory, and this is the point at which my husband told me I was reading too much into it and it’s just a commercial, is that it was his wife who was the one who built and nurtured relationships with their family and he was just in the room while she did the actual work of connecting with everyone, and when she died everyone drifted away, leaving him confused. He didn’t connect the dots and realize that they weren’t making spending time with him a priority because he never had with them.
Instead of being inspired to reach out to his kids, in-laws, and grandchildren and get to know them as individuals, he dimly pursues the only goal he can see (‘get everyone in the family to come to me at Christmas’ instead of ‘work on my relationships with everyone in the family so that they want to spend time with me at Christmas’) and stages his own death. Mission accomplished, so thumbs-up, I guess, but just like the boy who cried wolf, he’s going to find that when he has a genuinely dire situation, nobody will believe him. Plus, when they’re away from the manipulation and can think it all through, he’s risking their justified anger pushing them to distance themselves even further from him. I wouldn’t let my own kids anywhere near someone with such a distorted view of how relationships work. What else is he capable of? I wouldn’t want to stay close enough to find out.
It would have been more powerful if they cut the part where it was all a trick. Now the emotional manipulation aspect undercuts the message.
“Surprise! I’m alive!”
“Do we still get your money?”
Regards,
Shodan