My mother was a little crazy. She saw people looking through our windows, heard them whispering under our porch, spotted private family conversations in the newspaper, unexpectedly screamed profanity at people who looked suspicious (sometimes while we were in a restaurant or some other very public location), and thought the writing on trucks and other vehicles that passed us on the road were coded messages just for her. … It was a bit creepy.My father didn’t help. Rather than acknowledging my mother was crazy (she had paranoid schizophrenia, which I didn’t know until my late teens), he said she was “nervous.” This verdict suggested her visions were normal, and to my young mind, validated the notion that there were indeed people peeking into the house. It made me rather skittish.However, as a bright side to my mother’s fickle mental state, she was brilliant and often savagely funny when lucid. Form letters—letters sent at Christmas generally boasting of a family’s all-around success and wholesomeness—were targets of particular glee. My mother would read these saccharine missives with just the right amount of over-the-top chirpiness, and then would compose her own, much darker, Christmas form letter about our family. For example, “Last summer, mother was institutionalized again at Grover’s Sanitarium. It is a lovely tree-lined facility, and who can forget the shock treatments!? Whee!!!” We had a highly evolved sense of humor. However, even in her darkest moments, I doubt my mother could have matched David Sedaris’ send-up of form letters in his essay, “Season’s Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!!” Humor has always been about pushing the envelope. How far can you stretch humor before it tips over the edge and becomes disturbing? There’s no clear answer. I had a friend once comment vigorously, “You think the movie Fargo is funny? That’s not a funny movie!” Well sorry. I think it is. But humor is also deeply idiosyncratic. In Sedaris’s mock form letter, and this is not much of a spoiler given that you know something truly amiss is going on with the Dunbar family early on, the baby grandson is found—lifeless—in the dryer, having died while in the washing machine (but mercifully and most certainly, our letter writer assures us, before the spin cycle)… It’s not an essay that would appeal to everyone.I doubt few would debate the humor of Sedaris’ classic “Santaland Diaries” or “Jesus Shaves,” which also appears in his collection Me Speak Pretty One Day. Yesterday, I was trying to describe and then read a couple of short excerpts from the latter essay, when I found a YouTube clip of Sedaris reading the essay. Humor is wickedly difficult to write; you’re confined to prose to convey the pacing and intonation comedy requires. And then there’s Sedaris’ voice, slightly nasal, droll, and deliciously snarky. When my husband heard the essay, read by Sedaris, he laughed so hard he had tears running down his cheeks.“The Cow and the Turkey” is another wonderfully funny essay, slightly reminiscent of James Thurber’s wild fables. There’s no way to convey its humor adequately. Just think of a barnyard, the problems being a Secret Santa might pose for the animals, and a very sinister cow. My mother was that cow, and yes, Moira, I know this has Faulknerian echoes:“My mother is a fish.”
I feel weird reviewing this book right now because the honest truth is: I really genuinely did not like it. And yet I’ve been called out recently by a bunch of helpful strangers on Goodreads for not liking their favorite books—this asshole telling me I should avoid all literary fiction, this one here saying that my problem is with fiction in general—and I fear I’m going to develop a reputation for hating books, and then Otis will kick me off Goodreads and all the mean girls in the Feedback Group will cheer and the only people who will care are the one hundred sixty-four people in my friends list, but then a huge chunk of those people are real-life friends who have only ever logged into Goodreads once, so in the end there are about five people who will care. Maybe six.And that’s not to mention some of these other pressing fears a reviewer has to deal with: what if I rate too many books lowly (will people think I’m just trying to stir the pot and call negative attention to myself?), or what if I rate too many books highly (will people think I’m indiscriminate about which books are my favorites and therefore consider me unreliable?). I suppose there’s also the potential for too many mediocre reviews, and I guess that’s the guy whom everybody thinks can’t make up his freaking mind.In the end, I’m going to just opt for honesty. I disliked this David Sedaris book. I have never read a David Sedaris book before but I understand him to be a very popular comedian and I usually enjoy very popular comedians. Except this book isn’t funny. The initial story around which the entire collection is based, “SantaLand Diaries,” is about Sedaris’s stint as a Christmas elf at a Macy’s department store. The observations of his boss, of the other elves, of parents and children waiting to see Santa, and of the other shoppers are pretty standard fare—there is nothing particularly noteworthy about his comments that made me laugh or even raise an eyebrow in amusement. Of his other stories, there is really only one that is mildly memorable; the rest rely heavily on shock value which is not something that can successfully stand on its own in my opinion. Having said that, I don’t know that I will give up on Sedaris altogether. This book seems sort of thrown together, most of the stories not relating to anything in particular, whether to each other or to any unified theme, but I would expect some of his other collections to have better focus, and I will retain his other books in my “to read” list based on that expectation.
What do You think about Holidays On Ice (1998)?
There were only three stories in this collection that I didn't absolutely despise; Santaland Diaries, Dinah the Christmas Whore, and 6 to 8 Black Men were the only ones that were even remotely funny. The rest I honestly wish I had never read. I'd suggest reading these in the store or borrowing the book from the library if you really want to read it. Don't waste your money on this collection, especially the hardcover version, unless you really want to spend money on stories about a baby killed in a washing machine, a husband and wife giving away their two 10 year-old sons to a homeless man to one-up their neighbor by being the most charitable, and eyeballs kept in baby food jars.I think Sedaris thought he was being clever with these stories but really they were just sad and unfunny.
—The Holy Terror
When I’m feeling down and fragile (from too many “emotional” reads), there’s nothing quite like David Sedaris to comfort me. I just snuggle in and wrap myself up in his thick coating of cynicism and mockery…mmmmmmm…cozy. This particular collection is all about the holidays: that magical time when we manage to take a season that’s all about peace, charity, and goodwill and then just shit all over it. The horrid Christmas “specials,” the family update letters with waaaaay too much information, the constant drive to spend more and keep up with the Joneses: all of these precious moments are covered here. There are also a few hilarious stories about Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. If you're new to David Sedaris, this collection would actually be a great place to start. I was a bit disappointed that the final three or four stories are all ones that I’ve heard before, from Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, but really, I didn’t mind listening to them all over again. I mean, you really can’t have a David Sedaris holiday collection without 6 to 8 black men. And that’s another thing: David Sedaris simply must be listened to. His extremely dry delivery and impressions are well worth getting the audiobooks for. This one also features his sister Amy.Perfect Musical PairingJohnny Mathis – I’ll Be Home For ChristmasMy in-laws LOVE Johnny Mathis and his Christmas album gets some heavy rotation over the holidays. Nothing says “awkward family moments” to me quite like this song.
—Catie
After hearing David Sedaris' books are laugh out loud funny, I couldn't wait to read one. I chose "Holidays on Ice" as my first. To my dismay, I hardly enjoyed this book at all. For one, I couldn't tell whose perspective some of the chapters were written from; many of them definitely weren't from David's, which I found odd. Secondly, most of the stories felt like pure rambling. And it wasn't funny rambling, it was what is the point of this? rambling. I literally only laughed twice throughout the entire book. This book is not funny. Or maybe it's just not my kind of comedy? I may give another one of his books a try, but it won't be any time soon.
—Sarah Cauble
