Usually, I reserve this space for regulatory and policy observations and extra insights about the news we bring you each week. 

But the holidays are here, and that means it’s time for the second-best advertising season of the year. Yes, I know it’s all consumerism designed to make me spend my hard-earned money, but I can’t help it when the sappy music and the family gatherings come together in perfect time.

For my money, Amazon has won the winter advertising blitz two years running by focusing on products that bring joy to seniors — and pulling all the elements together to sucker us younger folks into the feelings fest too.

Many of you will remember last year’s Alexa spot, which featured an elderly couple swaying to the Flamingos’ 1958 version of “I Only Have Eyes for You.” When the music stops and the woman begins to look lost, the husband tells Alexa to play their favorite song again. And just like that, the confusion lifts and she’s remembering a dance from decades ago. 

That look of recognition is one anyone will notice if they’ve had a loved one (or a patient) with dementia. While voice command technology can’t possibly erase memory loss, music has been shown to help sustain connections. Those moments of clarity are worth more than any physical gift Santa might bring on Christmas Eve.

Yep, that one got me everytime.

So I was grateful when Amazon put out a little more uplifting holiday commercial this winter. No, we can’t buy happiness, but as Amazon would have us believe in this ad, you can surely order up a little fun online!

The ad opens on three bored-looking older women, the snow-covered scene behind them dreary and depressing as we hear the opening strains of the Beatles “In My Life.” The ladies are wistfully watching children sledding on a nearby hill, when one decides she’s had enough.

The next thing you know, she’s used the Amazon app to order three orthopedic cushions that they use to make some cheap plastic sleds a little more comfortable. The sun comes out as the helmeted women take to the hill themselves, rushing downward with full-faced smiles as children stare in awe.

There’s a memory sequence here, too, and it’s fitting given that the holidays are all about creating new memories with the ones we love.

If you really want a good cry, though, I suggest you find a quiet room and carve out five minutes to watch a new Chevrolet spot produced in coordination with the Alzheimer’s Association. This may be one of the most emotionally powerful ads of all time, though with its length, it’s not an ad you’ll see on TV often.

Steve Majoros, Chevrolet’s head of marketing, developed the messaging and committed his company’s winter ad spend to the long-format holiday piece. (Chevy is skipping the markedly less emotional Super Bowl extravaganza in 2024.)

The result is a beautiful piece of storytelling in which a quiet grandmother seems to not notice her family arriving for the holiday dinner, even when the youngest kids throw gifts in her lap.

That changes when an unlikely hero, a grumpy looking teenager with a pixie cut, grabs the keys to her grandparents’ vintage Suburban and literally drives down memory lane with grandma. 

“We talked a lot about reminiscence therapy — not that it’s a cure or a solve, but the power of music, the power of memories are things that can enable the person going through it to feel more comfortable,” Majoros was quoted as saying in a USA Today review, “and the people that are the caregivers that are surrounding them, to also feel more comfortable.”

Some folks might not appreciate the ads, thinking they’re exploiting aging and dementia for commercial gain. But for many of us, the holidays may be the one time of year we see some of our older relatives. It’s important to remember what they might be going through, and why it’s worth the extra effort to stay connected in any way we can, for any moments that we can.

For that, I’m willing to keep the tissue box handy this commercial season.

Kimberly Marselas is senior editor of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.

Opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News columns are not necessarily those of McKnight’s.