More Wit and Whimsy for the Holidays
Christmas time and the livin’ is stressful! Elves are jumpin’ and the holiday neuroses are high. You need some good theme-relevant reads to take a break from all of the seasonal insanity.
Start with David Sedaris’s Holidays on Ice,
a collection of essays to appeal to both your inner grinch and your inner Santa. Included are stories about Sedaris’s job as a Macy’s elf, and a holiday letter that goes way off topic. His essay “Six to Eight Black Men” addresses the cultural differences between America and other parts of the world when it comes to the celebration of Christmas. I’ve heard him do this story on CD, and it’s fall-down-funny hilarious.
Follow up with a helping of Connie Willis’s Miracle and Other Christmas Stories.
After Sedaris, you’ll appreciate this author’s sweet but irreverent tone. Willis is an author of wonderful science fiction stories, and she absolutely adores Christmas. She weaves her two loves into some of the most original holiday stories ever published. There’s a murder mystery, a tale of alien invasion, and an homage to the author’s favorite movie, “Miracle on 34th Street.” (Willis detests “It’s a Wonderful Life,” by the way, and that movie takes a number of funny hits in the story.) All of them delivered with good will and a dose of humor.
OK, I’ve given you bitter (Sedaris), and I’ve given you sweet (Willis).
Don’t forget an essential course on Christmas Eve: Clement C. Moore’s The Night Before Christmas. Be sure and find an edition that has the correct name for the seventh reindeer. (It’s Donder, folks, not
Donner!) After all, your nerves will be really frazzled by then, and the last thing you need is an argument over a reindeer’s name!
10 Best Christmas Books from the BookExaminer
I’m glad the Christmas Carol, came out on top. See the Book Examiner’s take on the top 10 Christmas Books.
A Christmas Carol, or it’s okay to be sappy
Every year around Christmas, I go back and read the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, usually followed by several versions of it in movies. I know what could be more sappy but we all have a Christmas idiosyncrasy, mine just involves Scrooge. Sample this wikipedia entry to get the spirit:
“Contemporaries noted that the story’s popularity played a critical role in redefining the importance of Christmas and the major sentiments associated with the holiday. A Christmas Carol was written during a time of decline in the old Christmas traditions.[4] “If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease”, said English poet Thomas Hood.[5"]]
This year I think I could use a new lease more than ever so enjoy.
