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bookdragon99's review
I was expecting lighthearted, humorous Christmas fails. Not dead deer and dying family members. I didn't even make it halfway.
proko5's review
3.0
A cute collection of short stories about less-than ideal Christmases. Actually, some of them were short stories, but many of them were just people ranting about Christmas, and their stories read like stand-up comedy. My favorites were the ones by Jews. Except many of the Jews celebrated Christmas, and I don't mean were invited to a friend or relative's house to share in the Yuletide joy with them. I mean they were brought up celebrating Christmas. I'm sorry, you're not Jews.
brittbee07's review
2.0
A good story to start and a good story to finish, but mostly annoying and overrated stories in the middle. Most were so unimpressive I hardly remember what happened. Many were simply whiney and self-indulgent.
nancyadelman's review
4.0
A fun series of short essays written by famous (?) authors about their worst Christmas experiences. The majority of the essays seem to be written by Jewish authors, so a lot of the stories are about mixing Hanukkah and Christmas. Other stories tend to be about family or food problems. Cute, but I would get this from the library, not the bookstore.
northerly_heart_reads's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
judyward's review
2.0
Everyone has had less than a perfect Christmas--or a lot of them--during their lives. Even I, who decorate to the point that it appears that either 1. Christmas actually threw up, or 2. a Christmas bomb went off, have had a few negative Christmas experiences. Picture it--I was in first grade and on Christmas morning I picked up the note that Santa left as a thanks for the milk and cookies and realized that it was written IN MY MOTHER'S HANDWRITING! I can tell you that kicked my little six-year old butt. Or the Christmas morning when my family decided that it would be easier to burn the wrapping paper in the fireplace rather than walk to the kitchen to get a trash bag and we had a chimney fire. Yes, it WAS exciting to hear the roar and run outside to see flames flying 20 feet out of the top of the chimney, but the fire department didn't seem to share our amazement. Or the Christmas afternoon when my cousins and I decided that it would be fun to put a whoopie cushion on my Grandmother's chair. When she sat down, we heard vocabulary that I really don't think should be used on the birthday of Jesus--which alerted our parents that all was not well and brought them into the living room at a gallop, and then the true fun started. Just a tip--savvy children do not put a whoopie cushion between their parents and the Christmas eggnog. But I digress. This book is a series of short stories--some are laugh-out loud funny and some border on rants. But if you like accounts of deer running into the sides of vehicles, mice eating the homemade ornament and decorations off the Christmas tree, gifts gone wrong, uncomfortable social experiences, and many other Christmas mishaps, this is the book for you.
shighley's review
1.0
Officially the worst Christmas book I ever read. I am not one to give up on books, but I came close; I kept thinking it might get better. I don't get the point; was it to depress people or something? To make fun of people who enjoy Christmas? To get back at the Smithfield ham people? Maybe it was supposed to be a parody of the often-uplifting Chicken Soup books. Our book club selected this as our December read, figuring we could use something light to end a disastrous 2020, but instead it went over like a lead balloon. (That cliched sentence would fit very well into the book.) While I thought some of the stories (and sentences) would never end, some stories ended so abruptly (even out of order) that all I could do was shake my head and hope the next was better.
rebeccadanielle's review
4.0
I loved this book. I laughed through just about every story in this book, at once stage I had to put it down and laugh. This was something nice and quick to read. A couple of the stories weren't that great but overall it was funny and I very much enjoyed it.