Just in time for Thanksgiving, Apple has dropped its annual holiday ad. The emotional three-minute video titled "The Surprise" tells a heartwarming story about family and love that has us reaching for tissues. Watch above.

The short commercial follows a family that travels across the country to visit the mother’s father, with two squabbling daughters in tow. Like many modern families, the parents hand them an iPad when their daughters start to fight. When they arrive at their granddad's house we see that he's in mourning as his wife recently passed.

While their mother and grandfather cope with their loss, the girls spend the holiday engrossed in their iPad working on a secret project. On Christmas morning, the sisters reveal the surprise, a touching gift made with creativity, love and of course iPad's infallible technology.

Compared with last year’s animated commercial, the ad takes a more cinematic route and has little by way of Apple branding.