British department store chain John Lewis is known for its annual Christmas ads, which feature some sort of aggressively cute concept and a new cover of a popular song that will immediately top the U.K. charts. This year, though, they've been hard at work developing weaponized make-you-cry technology. Hope you like sobbing!

Even though it's only November and we're already steeling ourselves against commercialism and Christmas creep, the story of Monty the Penguin will leech every salty teardrop out of your Grinchy, humbug face.

It's like they isolated the nostalgia for childhood imagination from Calvin and Hobbes, copied the dialogue-free storytelling tricks of Pixar's tearjerkingest scenes, threw them into a particle accelerator, and fired it directly into your left ventricle.

As an inveterate cynic, all I can say is that this is the kind of scary manipulation you get when corporations realize humans have feelings and then hire someone to find out where they come from. And it's working: Everyone in Britain is crying, Monty and Mabel the Penguin toys are entirely sold out, and Tom Odell's cover of John Lennon's "Real Love" is destined to be a holiday #1.

As a former kid, though, I need someone to find a thermos to put me in, 'cause I'm a goddamn puddle.

[h/t every single person in Britain, apparently]