There is something quietly brave about an internet provider asking you to use less internet. Xfinity’s holiday campaign, launched on November 9, 2026, does exactly that. “The Ghost of Christmas Very-Recent-Past” is a 90-second spot from Goodby Silverstein and Partners and the in-house Xfinity Creative Productions, directed by Jim Jenkins of O Positive, with John C. Reilly as a fourth, very junior member of Dickens’ ghost department. It sells Holiday Mode, a new feature in the Xfinity app that pauses WiFi on chosen devices, or on the whole house, with one tap. The film is on Xfinity’s official YouTube channel.
A ghost with a very short memory
The premise is a good one, and the film explains it fast. A woman on a sofa looks up from her phone and asks what she missed. Reilly, in a green velvet robe, a holly crown and a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate, is already standing in her living room. He is not the Ghost of Christmas Past, he insists, but the Ghost of Christmas Very-Recent-Past. He does not travel back decades. He rewinds a few seconds and shows you the thing that just happened while you were scrolling.
From there the spot becomes a run of vignettes. A kiss under the mistletoe that a phone-gazer missed. A dad lifting his daughter to put the star on the tree. A snowman built and then knocked down in a front yard, with Reilly replaying it for a man in a plaid jacket who was looking at his phone. An Uncle Mike who promises he will never miss another precious moment and is back on his screen a beat later. A crowd at an outdoor tree lighting, half of them filming it instead of watching it. The ghost even admits he has goosebumps, which is a good line for a dead man. It ends in a living room full of people talking to each other, the Holiday Mode demo and the line “Xfinity. Imagine That.”
Reilly is the whole engine
Casting does most of the work here. Reilly has a gift for playing sincere men in ridiculous situations, and he plays the ghost not as a scold but as an overeager fan of real life, delighted by a tree with lights on it. That tone matters. A film about phone addiction can easily turn preachy, and this one mostly stays on the right side of the line because its messenger is so obviously enjoying himself. The costume is a great piece of design too: equal parts Dickens, garden centre and Renaissance fair, it makes him readable in every frame without a word of setup.
Jenkins keeps the look warm and familiar: soft practical light, snow-heavy suburban porches, big decorated trees, the cosy palette of a US holiday catalogue. It is competent and polished rather than distinctive. The edit moves at a clip, and the best moments are the small reaction beats, people turning back to a moment they already lost.
Where the idea leaks
The structural problem is that a vignette format is an easy way to make 90 seconds feel busy, and it costs the film a real story. None of the people Reilly visits gets more than a few seconds, so there is no payoff stronger than a shrug and a smile. The Uncle Mike gag is the closest the spot comes to a running joke, and it is the funniest thing in it. A version built around one family, one evening and one stubborn phone addict would probably land harder than this montage.
There is also the obvious irony. A broadband brand telling people to look up from their screens is a nice twist, and Adweek reports Xfinity research claiming 79 percent of people would rather have screen-free time than any wrapped gift. But the product it sells is, in the end, a parental-controls style pause button that has existed in routers and apps for years, now rebranded with tinsel. The ad is smart enough not to dwell on the feature, and the demo arrives late and briefly, but it is still a gentle bait-and-switch: the warm message is bigger than the thing being sold.
Finally, the Christmas Carol riff is a well-worn road. This season alone has no shortage of ghosts, Dickens nods and warm-hearted family films. What sets this one apart is the twist on the time scale, “very recent” past, and that joke is clear in the first ten seconds. After that the film is mostly repeating it.
The verdict
“The Ghost of Christmas Very-Recent-Past” is a likeable, well-cast holiday spot with a genuinely clever title and a counterintuitive message for a telecom brand. John C. Reilly makes it work far better than the script alone would. But the vignette structure keeps it shallow, the joke peaks early, and Holiday Mode itself is a modest feature dressed up as a big gift. Charming, watchable, and a little too pleased with its own premise.
Credits: Client: Xfinity. Agencies: Goodby Silverstein and Partners and Xfinity Creative Productions. Production company: O Positive. Director: Jim Jenkins. Talent: John C. Reilly. Film: 90 seconds. Credits per Adweek, Ad Age and Ads of the World.
Rating: 3 out of 5
