During my recent 1,600 mile drive with my uncle he insisted that we listen to Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris. While I have the author on that crazy long list of books/authors to check out, I hadn’t yet read anything by him. My uncle assured me that I wouldn’t be bummed with this.
Holidays on Ice is a small collection of short stories, all of them centered around the Christmas holiday. My favorite story from the collection, and what is probably one of his most famous is “The Santaland Diaries” where Sedaris talks about time spent as an elf at the New York City Macy’s store. I have another favorite as well… so two favorites. “Six to Eight Black Men” which my uncle told me to listen for had me rolling. There are not words for the sheer amazing-ness that were those two stories. There was a story about holiday competition in an upscale neighborhood… you know those people who decorate and donate to the point of insanity. Only Sedaris’s version goes BEYOND insanity. Another story involving a Vietnamese girl was particularly interesting, even if the end of the story left me going, “Holy shit!” and my uncle responding, “Yeah, I know. It’s fucked up.” The one thing that let me down about Holidays on Ice… it was too short. I want MORE stories.
The collection was both dark and humorous. I have to admit to spending a good portion of this book in side-splitting laughter and the other portion shaking my head wondering how someone comes up with this stuff. One of the things that made the audiobook experience good for me is that the author read most of it himself. I was always very adamant that if I’m going to listen to a book, I’ll only do it if the author reads the book himself. Sedaris and his sister do read the majority of it, and an actress reads one of the stories. I think she did a great job though, so I’m not too bummed about it. I;m just glad that I got to hear the stories as they were meant to be heard. It makes the whole audiobook experience.
Holidays on Ice has me hooked and I can’t wait to read more by Sedaris.
Among Stories 
Brilliant! This book is on our list, but I don’t think either one of us knew much about it so it’s great to hear you enojyed it so much!
As long as you can appreciate the dark humor you ought to enjoy it.