R. Clifton Spargo is the author of the novel Beautiful Fools, The Last Affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald (2013).One entry on his list of the twelve weirdest stories of Christmas, as shared at The Huffington Post:
David Sedaris, "SantaLand Diaries" (1992)Read about the other stories on the list.
Sedaris, as a Macy's department store elf, gives us the gift of rant. 20,000 people visit SantaLand each day. They get into fistfights, they vomit and throw tantrums; and if they're really unlucky, they're greeted by the gibes of an impish elf. When mothers call for him to be fired, Sedaris has only this to say: "Go ahead, be my guest. I'm wearing a green velvetcostume. It doesn't get any worse than this." Oh, but it does. One elf makes advances on other elves and Santas indiscriminately. A naughty boy acts out in the check-out line, only to be reined in (at the mother's request) by the good elf Sedaris, who puts the fear of Santa into the boy. Not just lumps of coal and a shortage of toys. We're talking about a Santa who commits full-scale larceny, stealing televisions, electrical appliances, the family car -- a vengeful fantasy halting only when the mother cries, "enough." But that's exactly Sedaris's point in this personal essay: when it comes to Christmas-time commercialism, enough is enough already.
The Santaland Diaries is on Guy Browning's top 10 list of Christmas books.
--Marshal Zeringue
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