This morning, I worked as an exit elf, telling people in a loud voice, `This way out of Santaland.’ A woman was standing at one of the cash registers paying for her pictures while her son lay beneath her, kicking and heaving, having a tantrum. The woman said, `Riley, if you don’t start behaving yourself, Santa’s not going to bring you any of those toys you asked for.’ The child said, `He is, too, going to bring me toys, liar. He already told me.’ The woman grabbed my arm and said, `You there, elf, tell Riley here that if he doesn’t start behaving immediately, then Santa’s going to change his mind and bring him coal for Christmas.’ I said that Santa changed his policy and no longer traffics in coal. Instead, if you’re bad, he comes to your house and steals things. I told Riley that if he didn’t behave himself, Santa was going to take away his TV and all his electrical appliances and leave him in the dark. The woman got a worried look on her face and said, `All right. That’s enough.’ I said, `He’s going to take your car and your furniture and all of your towels and blankets and leave you with nothing.’ The mother said, `No, that’s enough, really.’
The above quote is one of the more politically correct, less offensive parts of this masterpiece. I rarely read fiction, but I have been working hard and decided it was time to pick up something a little more upbeat. Heather, the editor of this blog, recommended Holidays on Ice and I’m glad she did. The book provided just what I needed, a great deal of laughter.
Sedaris includes 6 essays in this volume. The quote above is from my favorite, “SantaLand Diaries”. It’s the story of a Christmas Elf at Macy’s from the interview process to Christmas eve. The main character plays practical jokes on the patrons, comments on the various odd habits of parents, and wonders how this will help him in his life goal of writing for a soap opera. That essay alone is worth the price of the book. Another essay that had me cackling was “Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol”. The main character, a theatre critic, provides scathing reviews of a handful of children’s Christmas pageants. The other essays were hit and miss, 2 were great and 2 were only mildly funny. You won’t regret reading any of them, but there are definitely inconsistent levels of quality.
The book crosses about every line that exists in this politically correct world; so if you’re easily offended, stay away. It doesn’t have an overriding theme and there’s not much to be learned from it. That said, if all you want to do is have a good laugh at the ridiculousness of the holidays, there can’t possibly be a better book out there.
