The Childhood Trust addresses the 21,265 London children who won't receive Christmas presents

London's child poverty charity, the Childhood Trust's emotive Christmas ad is a far cry from the typical Christmas campaign built to encourage more festive shopping. 

Challenging the traditional Christmas ad, the charity's festive tale is one grounded in reality.

The ad responds to recent research conducted by the Childhood Trust that revealed 21,265 children who live in poverty in London will receive no presents this year. 

To raise awareness of this reality, the film, created by ad agency Aesop,follows a seasonal worker who dresses up as Santa Claus in a shopping centre's Grotto. 

Opening with a well-known Christmas scene, the film sees the stand-in Santa hand out gifts to children, before taking his paycheck and heading home on the bus. 

The reality of our Santa's sad situation emerges once he enters through the door of his small flat, in a London borough, far from the bright, make-believe festive streets from which he came. 

There are no Christmas cards in this household, only debt reminders, and the only decorations are children's drawings which hang from the walls around a small bed where two children sleep. 

The stark contrast from his day job handing out presents to strangers' children, to the sad reality of a present-less Christmas for his own, works to hit home the extent to which austerity affects those around us. 

Alongside the film, the Childhood Trust aims to raise over £2m for 75 London charities to fund support for disadvantaged children and young people throughout 2019. Donations made to the charity between 27 November and 4 December will be doubled, as part of its, Big Give Christmas Challenge campaign. 

Laurence Guinness, chief executive, the Childhood Trust says: “This Christmas, the reality for many children will be; hunger, anxiety, homelessness and feeling left out compared to other children. There’s no end of austerity in sight for disadvantaged children in London as they suffer, largely out of sight and out of mind.

"We’re calling on all Londoners to donate now to their local children’s charity to help us ensure that as many children as possible have the help they need this Christmas and beyond”  

“We wanted to do something different and highlight what Christmas really means for some children” explains Brian Cooper, executive creative director at Aesop Agency. “No one wants to dampen the Christmas spirit, but this is an important cause. Every child should have a Christmas.”