This was my introduction to David Sedaris, and I have to say I found a couple of the stories very, very funny. "The SantaLand Diaries" - about Sedaris' job as an elf at Macy's during the Christmas season - was absolutely hilarious. It took me back to my collegiate summer job at Walt Disney World, where I, too, was forced to deal with pushy adults, bratty kids, and an uncomfortable and unflattering uniform. I also thought "Delilah the Christmas Whore" was entertaining - as much for its references to Raleigh, NC (where I live) as the story itself.

I give it three stars, though, for the stories I didn't enjoy as much - an address to a poor Kentucky church congregation from a pushy, selfish Hollywood television producer; and "Merry Christmas to our Friends and Family," a woman's Christmas card letter about a year gone horribly wrong. Parts of these stories were humorous, but overall I found them more morbid and depressing than anything, and I just didn't get them.

Overall, I enjoyed this one. It was a good audiobook choice for my commute to work. The humor was much more darkly funny than I expected, and I love Sedaris' concise, tell-it-like-it-is writing style. I've heard that his book "Naked" is quite funny, so I'm going to give that one a shot as well.

I had trouble getting past the racism, ableism, and xenophobia that seemed to be the punchline of every joke.

Listened to the audio of this which I’d recommend. Great holiday read… light and funny.

a re-listen for the holidays. santaland diaries is just... so good.

This isn’t funny? I found most of it offensive... I can lighten up but judging and making fun of others/horrible stereotypes ... that’s just not my humor. Also: Yawn. I felt like I was trapped at a Christmas party talking to *that* person...

I always enjoy David Sedaris and this was a fun and entertaining listen. I enjoy reading Sedaris' books, but listening to him makes it so much better.

Yuck. This wasn’t funny at all. The humor and characters were just mean-spirited. I enjoy dark humor when it makes me laugh, but I didn’t laugh once.

I guess you might enjoy this if you like dead baby jokes and making fun of the less fortunate.

This was on my TBR for what seems like forever. Too bad. Not a Sedaris fan, that’s for sure.

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.”

Not Sedaris’ best.

I keep trying to like David Sedaris but I just don’t find him that funny or entertaining. Three books in, he’s like the sad-sack but reasonably witty guy in your sophomore writing class that was amusing while the semester was going but you don’t feel a strong urge to connect with on Facebook when it's time to move on. His observations are dry, cynical and devoid of insight. I picked up this slim volume at the library book sale and thought it would be funny to read in June with Christmas ages away. Alas, the stories are holiday-related but none of them are much to cherish as part of a holiday tradition. The only standout is his compilation of stories from working at Macy’s during Christmas, which is called “Santaland Diaries”. It’s amusing and episodic. The rest are downbeat and shrill stories that happen to occur around holidays. Two are so arch that I found myself speeding through them to the end because I knew they were just boring rants that wouldn't go anywhere – especially the tiresome closing story, “Christmas Means Giving”. Again – this would be amusing from a high school kid but someone published this thing? I think I’m done with Sedaris and trying to figure out why he’s a cultural icon for many.

it’s giving shouts and murmurs


santaland diaries was def the best but seasons greetings to our friends and family and Christmas means giving were close seconds

This one had me laughing A LOT! It has some offensive language because it was written back in the 90’s, but if you don’t get offended very easily, you should check it out!