I don't get this collection. Like I just genuinely do not understand the point of half of these stories. They're not stories from his life, they're made up. But that's not generally what Sedaris does, and I was confused why he had these random fictional stories that had no purpose in with some of his more standard essays. None of them were funny, regardless.

The only one that had any merit was the SantaLand Diaries, but that had the creepiest vibes. At one point he discussed a perk of the job as seeing teenagers half naked changing into their elf costumes. ("Many of the elves are young, high school and college students. They're young and cute and one of the job perks is I get to see them in their underpants.") He was in his thirties at the time, so that was super gross. He also used slurs, not just in that essay but a few of them.

He had one essay (short story? I think it was fiction?) in the form of a Christmas card about a woman whose husband just found out he had an illegitimate Vietnamese daughter and also the woman's first grandchildren was born addicted to drugs. It went places, but I didn't get the point. It wasn't funny, it wasn't clever, it wasn't biting. It was just kind of gross and bitter.

Another was about a family who constantly had to one up their neighbors in terms of giving, which led to them being homeless and missing a few organs and dying. Again, fiction? Not funny either way.

I dunno. I don't love Sedaris all the time, but there was nothing here to enjoy. Usually in his collections I find a handful of essays I enjoyed, but here I can only say that maybe the Santaland Diaries is worth reading? Only I work customer service and I get a million stories like his every single day. There was nothing particularly standout about any of them. This whole collection was a miss for me.