A review by judyward
The Worst Noel: Hellish Holiday Tales by Cynthia Kaplan

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.