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wesleylau

wesleylau

Holidays on Ice - David Sedaris Definitely the funniest book I've ever read as I don't know if I've laughed out loud reading a book before.

The first half of the book was far better than the second half in my opinion. "SantaLand Diaries," about being an elf for those mall family portraits, was the longest story but absolutely worth reading. "Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!" and "Christmas Means Giving" were hilariously exaggerated caricatures of certain types of people.

The shorter stories were a lot weaker than the longer ones. They came across as unrealized, like passing half-thoughts more than snapshots of complete stories. However, even in the short, less gratifying stories, there were funny parts, like in "He Shaves":
The teacher sadly shook her head, as if this explained everything that was wrong with my country. "No, no," she said. "Here in France the chocolate is brought by the big bell that flies in from Rome."

I called for a time-out. "But how do the bell know where you live?"

"Well," she said, "how does a rabbit?"

It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That's a start. Rabbits move from place to place, while most bells can only go back and forth--and they can't even do that on their own power. On top of that, the Easter Bunny has character; he's someone you'd like to meet and shake hands with. A bell has all the personality of a cast-iron skillet. It's like saying that come Christmas, a magic dustpan flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying cinder blocks.

For me, the weakest stories were "Dinah, the Christmas Whore" because it wasn't very funny and you don't really know why anything happens the way it does, and "Let It Snow" because it was too short to really offer anything.

While I wish they would have removed some stories, it was a very entertaining book.