This German Holiday Ad is The Ultimate Guilt Trip

German supermarket Edeka has a special message for the holiday season: the best way to bring your family together is to guilt trip the ever-loving shit out of them.

In a commercial that has a staggering 20 million views after just four days, a sad old man keeps spending Christmas alone because his wife is dead and his kids are all too busy and wrapped up in their own lives to come visit him. Then one day, they get the tragic news that their father has died and everyone rushes home from around the world to hug each other and be sad.

Then – spoiler! – as they’re all walking into his house in tears, they see a table laid out for Christmas dinner and their father walks out from the kitchen because it was ALL A TRICK. “How else could I have brought you all together?” he says with a deep, long-suffering sigh. And then everyone runs to hug him and they all have the best Christmas ever.

Are you crying? Don’t you feel terrible for not calling your parents enough? They’ll be dead one day and then how will you feel, huh? Go call them right now!

I’m pretty sure that in real life, this would end in a giant screaming fight and leave some of the children traumatized. I mean good lord, imagine being a little kid and trying to understand that Grandpa has gone away and you’ll never see him again, and then days later you see him strolling out of the kitchen. What if the kids thought he was a ghost or something?

Oh well, at least that old man taught his selfish ungrateful family a lesson and made us all feel like bad people.

Do NOT try this at home, YouTube pranksters. Roman Atwood, I’m looking at you.