At Christmas, people like to do things together. Whether it’s having Christmas dinner, or decorating a tree, or singing carols (whatever floats your boat), it’s that time of year tobe with the ones you love.

In Spain, they honour this ‘Christmas Spirit’ by holding a Christmas Lottery. Instead of just one lucky winner, in this once-a-year prize draw, lots of people get a chance to win a pretty decent sum.

The way it works? Each shoponly sells one, or maybe two different numbers. So, traditionally, groups of colleagues, friends, or family all buy a ticket with the same number. Then, if that number comes up, they all win ‘el gordo‘, or ‘the first prize’ together – usually a couple ofmillion euros each.

While, yes, there are lotteries with bigger payouts, what makes the Spanish Christmas lottery so special is the fact that a lot of friendswin at the same time, and so they all get rich together. And it’s at Christmas…

What a heart-warming concept, you must be thinking. That might make a nice idea for a Christmas advert, you might be thinking… Maybe John Lewis should get on top of this, it’s certainly better than a lonely old man exiled to the moon…

Well, Spain is way ahead of you. They make a Christmas advert for this lottery every year (basically their equivalent of the John Lewis ad).

Featuring an old man who works as a night-watchman in a mannequin factory, this year’s advert is particularly lovely.

You can check it out here:

And, if you want to weep some more, check out this subtitled version of the advert from 2014. In this one, aman had forgotten to buy his ticket the year his and his friends’ number came up… You can probably guess what happens next…

Better than John Lewis?

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