Marks & Spencer has unveiled its 2026 Christmas advert, and it has already become the most talked-about festive campaign of the season. The three-minute film, titled The Home of Christmas, stars Happy Valley actor James Norton as an undercover Santa — and at one point, he strips off entirely.
The advert launched on M&S’s social media channels at 7am on Friday, November 6, before its television debut on ITV’s This Morning later in the day. Amandaland star Lucy Punch plays Mrs Claus, who persuades Santa to shave off his beard, swap his red suit for a Christmas jumper and leave the North Pole to experience the season for himself without being recognised.
A Santa who goes incognito
The film opens with Mrs Claus suggesting her husband lose the beard, telling him: “They say it takes years off.” Santa protests — “No! It’s my thing!” — but eventually agrees to the makeover, and the transformation includes a scene in which Norton poses in just a white towel, prompting an enthusiastic reaction from Mrs Claus.
Opera singer Katherine Jenkins also appears in the film and provides the soundtrack: a reworked version of Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is a Place on Earth, recorded with producer Fraser T Smith and composer Tom Howe. The cover is officially released alongside the campaign today.
M&S takes on John Lewis
The campaign marks the first time since 2017 that M&S has brought food, fashion, home and beauty together in a single Christmas campaign. Its physical centrepiece will be the Pantheon store on Oxford Street in London, which is being transformed for the festive season.
For years, the “Christmas advert moment” has belonged to John Lewis, whose 2026 advert starring Gloria the dog and her puppy Pickles won hearts when it launched this week. M&S has decided to challenge that dominance head-on, with a commercial that trades sentiment for humour — and a topless Santa that Men’s Health magazine has already nicknamed the “shredded Santa”.
Norton said it is “not every day you get asked to play Santa, let alone a Santa who immediately shaves off his beard”, adding that M&S “has been such a familiar part of Christmas for as long as I can remember”. Punch, who is set to star in a new Amandaland Christmas special next month, said the role was not far removed from her television comedy character.
Sources: TheIndustry.beauty (campaign details, 6 Nov); Attitude (film titled “The Home of Christmas”, launched 6 Nov); Grocery Gazette (first integrated campaign since 2017); OK! (TV premiere on This Morning, 6 Nov).
