Welcoming the outcast: the Christmas ads of 2016

Has anyone else noticed this? Some Christmas ads this season have carried a distinct message of acceptance, inclusion, and welcome—especially toward those who might considered strange or “different.”

First, there’s Apple’s poignant ad featuring Frankenstein:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFPcsYGriEs

Then there’s this ad from Lowe’s with a very similar (but notably more whimsical) theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duqghRhWBzQ

To some, these will just be cute vignettes about holiday hospitality. But I think these go deeper than that. They are small parables with a pointed lesson about accepting those who are rejected —whether they are migrants, or the disenfranchised, or the disabled, or even members of the LGBT community. It’s about welcoming anyone seen as The Other.

Whatever the interpretation, these ads speak to who we are as Christians.

To quote Pope Francis:

“Dear brothers and sisters, let us not fall into the trap of closing in on ourselves, indifferent to the needs of brothers and sisters and concerned only with our own interests. It is precisely in the measure to which we open ourselves to others that life becomes fruitful, society regains peace and people recover their full dignity.”