An Idiot Girl's Christmas: True Tales from the Top of the Naughty List [Hardcover]

Laurie Notaro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005

IT’S LAURIE NOTARO’S HOLIDAY HANDBOOK.
PREPARE TO LAUGH YOUR TINSEL OFF.

It’s the most wonderful–and most dreadful–season of the year, when boxes of truffles attack your thighs, drunken holiday revelers stay long past their welcome, and your grandmother has conniptions at the department store over the price of hand lotion. Welcome to Laurie Notaro’s Christmastime.

In ten brand-new stories and three previously published favorites, Notaro shares the sidesplitting daily disasters of the holidays, like finding herself on emergency feminine product recon at midnight on Christmas Eve; surrendering to the inevitable Horrible Gift Parade by simply asking for holiday dish towels and giant white underpants from Sears; battling the morons in line at the Seventh Circle of Hell, otherwise known as the do-it-yourself craft store; and trying to live down her reputation as the Most Unfun Christmas Party Guest Ever, due to an unfortunate misunderstanding involving a fake overdose and emergency paramedics.

So whether you find yourself at the Dull and Smart Party or the Raucous and Stupid Party this holiday season, you’ll always know where to find Laurie–just follow the chocolate trail over to the cheese platter. She’ll be the one dialing the cops.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Humorist Notaro (Autobiography of a Fat Bride; We Thought You'd be Prettier) takes on the standard fare of holiday horrors in this slim volume of essays, rejuvenating well-worn territory with gonzo humor and a few touches of sentiment. Notaro proffers up an ironic gift list ("Of course, I would enjoy more than anything getting some really cheap bath crystals, so I could use them when I take a shower since I don't have a bathtub") and skewers the horrors of December shopping ("a woman who had gone to high school with Mary Todd Lincoln moved up to the counter"), but also recounts some peculiar, Notaro family-specific stories, like the year the author (sort of) died and was resurrected on Christmas Eve, or the year the family ate raisin-resembling maggots with Christmas dinner. Understated emotion (tempered with sarcasm) is Notaro's secret strength, whether remembering her late grandfather's Christmas Eve walks, or taking her Nana shopping: "She's like a toddler but one who won't respond to the store PA system calling her name unless the speaker is approximately two inches from her left, good ear." Fans of David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice will find this worth a look.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Laurie Notaro loves Christmas, despite the fact that last year she was the unfortunate recipient a jar of previously owned bath salts and an XXL sweater with a snowman on it. She does not adhere to the saying “It’s the thought that counts” when the thought is “If I clean it off and put a bow on it, she won’t know I used this,” but she does think it’s funny to call out on the Holy Night, “Ho ho ho and a bottle of rum!” because it makes her mother mad. This is her fifth book.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Villard; First Edition edition (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400064368
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064366
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.7 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #379,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laurie Notaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, then spent the remainder of her formative years in Phoenix, AZ, where she created something of a checkered past. She is the New York Times Best-selling author of the humor memoirs The Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody and Other Atrocious Lies, We Thought You Would Be Prettier, Idiot Girls' Christmas, There's a Slight Chance I Might Be Going to Hell, The Idiot Girls and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, and Spooky Little Girl, which will be available April 13, 2001. She is a terrible typist, doesn't suffer Big Ikes very well, and lives under an assumed name in Eugene, Oregon where her neighbors believe she is writing about them, but she is not. She has a cute dog, a nice husband and misses Mexican food like a limb lost to diabetes.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Christmas Shopping With Laurie, November 16, 2005

By 

takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: An Idiot Girl's Christmas: True Tales from the Top of the Naughty List (Hardcover)

As a late arrival to the Laurie Notaro fanwagon (I didn't discover her until her third book), I got off to a slow start, finding her humor too confrontational at times, and too self-abasing at other times. Still, I found myself hunting down her previous books, and before I knew what had hit me, I was laughing and reading bits out loud to savor them.

My favorite Notaro pieces all seem to involve shopping. In An Idiot Girl's Christmas, the standout essays are Deck the Mall, in which Laurie takes her Nana Christmas shopping, and Have Yourself a Kmart Little Christmas, in which Laurie finds herself in a crowded Super Kmart just before closing time on Christmas Eve.

In another chapter, The Most Unfun Christmas Party Hostess Ever, we get an intriguing glimpse of Laurie's husband (although we still don't know his name). As they get their house ready for a Christmas party, unnamed husband asks "Do you think if I put my new Emily Dickinson biography on the coffee table that it will spur conversation?" Apparently, in his circle of friends, this is a distinct possibility. Laurie knows her friends, on the other hand, will "debate whether or not I know that I married a gay man."

An Idiot Girl's Christmas is a pretty short book, 142 pages in a hardcover the size of a trade paperback, but it's priced accordingly, and you'll definitely get your money's worth in laughs.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lively, fun, and of course...Self decimating, November 3, 2005

By 

Teresa M. Zwemer "bella" (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An Idiot Girl's Christmas: True Tales from the Top of the Naughty List (Hardcover)

In true Laurie style, this book will make you feel better about your worst Christmas memory. Because inevitably, hers is worse. Way worse.

A really quick read (I picked it up after work yesterday...took it to the gym...and was finished before dinner) but fun and entertaining throughout. There is no filler in this short, but sweet book. Just lots of Laurie's unique humor encapsulated in bite sized Christmas stories of true horror. My favorite I think being the Super K-mart at midnight on Christmas Eve story.

If you've read and liked ANY of her previous work...this book should be on your Christmas list...hopefully positioned above the puffy Christmas dish towels and nylon underwear large enough to cover a sports car in a downpour.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, wonderful, great read, November 14, 2005

By 

T. Frye (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Idiot Girl's Christmas: True Tales from the Top of the Naughty List (Hardcover)

Notaro keeps getting better with age--I loved this book, read it in a night despite my best efforts to ration myself to a chapter a night--and am now re-reading it for a second time. I always consider Laurie's books multiple-use, anyway, I've read all of her books two and three times. I was happy to see some old favorites in An Idiot Girl's Christmas, but happier to see the new material, particularly the closing chapter, which was a departure from her usual stuff and works marvelously and had me laughing outloud until I couldn't breathe. Always hilarious, always relateable (I too, am a clear light Christmas tree person), always truthfull, I will advise any readers of this book to follow the rules of the previous books: don't read in public unless you want people to doubt your sanity, and don't imbibe or eat unless you want to become a Diet Pepsi fountain (laughing and liquid intake to do not mix). This is a great fifth installment in my Notaro collection, and I will treasure it for every holiday season to come, and it has also provided me with something to give to every one of my girlfriends (especially the ones who are impossible to buy for). Thanks, Laurie!