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14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Jewish Christmas?, March 23, 2006
This review is from: The Worst Noel: Hellish Holiday Tales (Hardcover)
FIrst off, let me say that I am Jewish myself and grew up in a Catholic neighborhod, where my family was one of the only Jewish families around. So I know plenty about being the "odd girl out" during the holiday season, with many of my own humorous tales.
However, I think it is wildly misleading to label a story collection "The Worst Noel" and then have more than half the stories about Jews who either are celebrating a bogus Christmas they clearly don't believe in (for the parties and gifts) or angsting because they are stuck with the incredibly lame Festival of Hannukah, the poor stepchild of Christmas. There is certainly a place for the assimilated (or unassimilated) Jewish writers to pour forth their anguish or glee or awkwardness, but it is NOT in a book glaringly mislabeled "The Worst Noel". Maybe it's in a book that could be called "The Worst Hannukah" or "The Worst Chrismukkah".
Anyone even nominally Christian, or even non-sectarian, who picks up this book hoping to read actual funny stories about CHRISTIANS celebrating THE MOST IMPORTANT HOLIDAY OF THE YEAR is going to feel wildly cheated. After all, Jews make up roughly 1.5% of the US population (although disproportionately more of the book buying public). It would make more sense to write about a Muslim's outlook on Christmas or a Hindu's or even an atheist's.
Maybe the publisher thought a story collection called "Dysfunctional Jews At Christmastime" wouldn't sell. But this book is a cheat and misleading. While about 1/3 of the stories are genuinely funny (although collected here inappropriately), the rest are often whiny and betray an insulated sense of privilege, as they are entirely about wealthy, educated intellectuals whose idea of how to celebrate the holidays bumps up against Southerners, low-lifes, non-intellectuals and peope with -- GASP! -- bad taste.
I guess therefore that "bad taste" is the ultimate sin against Christmas. I don't read any ringing indictments of tasteful, Martha Stewart/Pottery Barn celebrations.
HINT: buying this for a Christian friend or family member as a holiday gift would be a huge mistake.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's funny!, December 19, 2010
I don't why this book has received so many poor reviews. I laughed (hard) all the way through. Perhaps the other reviewers were expecting endearing tales about minor holiday mishaps a la "A Christmas Story," all with heartwarming endings that remind them of their own best holidays--or at least make them forget about their worst ones. In that case, oh well. The essays aren't sentimental, but they're honest and even funnier for that. The essay by John Marchese about meeting his future in-laws on Christmas is hysterical. And Ann Patchett's tale of a blended family's Christmas is pretty funny--in a darkish way--because it's real.
As for those who complained about Jews writing about Christmas: Oh, please. Christmas is inescapable. I'm not a Christian, but I celebrate in my own secular-humanist way, and I enjoy it far more than many of my Christian friends, who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time praying for it to be over.
This book is smart, funny, and honest, and I enjoyed it so much I bought the audio book too. And it was worth it. Hearing Marchese read his own story--with all the accents--was a hoot. My cheeks were streaked with tears of laughter.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Relatively amusing stories of Christmases gone wrong, December 18, 2008
This review is from: The Worst Noel: Hellish Holiday Tales (Hardcover)
This is a collection of true stories from various authors sharing some of their worst Christmas memories ever. Most of the stories, while they may have seemed sad and tragic at the time, are cast in distinctly humourous light, from "Donner is Dead," about the misfortune of a car hitting a deer, to "Birthdays," Ann Patchett's lament about those unfortunate ones who, like herself, celebrate their birthdays in December. A few of the offerings, however, are more serious and more poignant, such as Anne Giardini's "Christmas 2001," in which she describes her family's last Christmas with her mother, who is dying of cancer.
One odd thing about this book was that a good number of the stories actually feature Jews celebrating Christmas. Although a few of these are quite amusing--most notably, "The Jew Who Cooked a Ham for Christmas," about one man's quest to cook the perfect Christmas ham--they seem somewhat out-of-place in a book about Christmas stories, even bad ones. My favorite story in the book was Binnie Kirshenbaum's "The Gift of the Magi Redux," a tale of two young lovers who don't quite succeed at holiday gift-giving.
If you like the idea of this book, I recommend Maeve Binchy's fictional This Year It Will Be Different, a more compilation of fictional less-than-perfect Christmas stories.
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