During the holiday season I have a tendency to be the scrooge at every gathering of kindred spirits. I don’t necessarily celebrate any one of the holidays: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, or even Festivus. In fact, I view the entire affair with a sharpened cynicism. I stand ready to dish out harsh rebuttals to every aspect of the season. Gift giving? Just a scheme that preys on the wallets of our consumer culture and creates an abundance of unnecessary pressure and stress. Christmas trees? Came from the Pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice and were once banned (along with the entire holiday) by the Puritans in the 1600s. Mistletoe? It’s actually a somewhat parasitic plant that preys on trees. Some varieties are even poisonous to you and your pets. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that my favorite moment of every holiday season is revisiting David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries.
For those who have been fortunate enough to stumble upon this staggering work of comic holiday genius, you’ll know exactly why I love it. Sedaris affirms the Grinch in each of us. The story, first appearing on NPR’s Morning Edition thirteen years ago and later in Sedaris’ Holidays on Ice, chronicles his experience working as one of Santa’s little helpers in Macy’s Santaland in New York City. His dry wit and knack for satire captures the absurdities of Christmas while filtering out almost every ounce of obnoxious and feigned holiday cheer.
There is the New Jersey man who shouts to Santa, “I WANT A BROAD WITH BIG TITS” while his “small-breasted wife” looks on. Or the woman who instructs her son to pee on fake snow. Or the other woman who requests a ‘traditional’ Santa and is sent by Blisters (Sedaris’ elf name) to Jerome, the black Santa. And, of course, the bewildered foreigners (from Santaland Diaries):
Often the single adults are foreigners who just happened to be shopping… a Santa Elf leads the way to a house where the confused and exhausted visitor addresses a bearded man in a red suit, and says, “Yes, OK. Today I am good.” He shakes Santa’s hand and runs, shaken, for the back door.
But perhaps the most raucous and potentially offensive story is Sedaris’ eyebrow-raising comparison between Santa and, you guessed it: Satan.
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