12 Days of Christmas Presents Past: Here–Have a Brita Filtration Pitcher 

As a sort of advent calendar of kitsch, Pictorial will be counting down the final twelve days before Christmas by featuring some holiday presents of days gone by.

This December 1990 ad suggests that Brita filtration pitches were once much more exciting. Maybe it was a yuppie thing? Either that, or this is really one for the annals of Brands Trying Too Hard history. Also, that line—”The perfect gift for 65% of you”—took much longer to parse than I’d like to admit.

Here’s one of the TV ads the company was running around the same time. “Before people, before cities, it was clear, untouched—new,” the voiceover says as an eagle shrieks. “It can be new again, with Brita.” Somehow that makes filtered water less appealing than it should be.