Advent Reads Day 8: Stupid Christmas by Leland Gregory

Read for: Advent Reads/ Mount TBR

Synopsis: "A new collection of outrageous, laugh-out-loud anecdotes about the weird and wacky things that happen during the Christmas holidays, by the author of New York Times best-sellers Stupid American History and America’s Dumbest Criminals.

From absurd 911 calls to presidential philosophizing and foolish felons, Leland Gregory generates the best laughs by exposing the worst of human nature. Following up his New York Timesbest-selling Stupid American History, Gregory sets his sights on the holidays as he exposes mind-numbing mistletoe maladies in Stupid Christmas: Idiots under the Mistletoe. 

Perhaps it's the spiked eggnog or the multiple family members gathered around crazy-colored, twinkly lights, but the holidays are rife with idiocy by the daft and the dumb. Inside this latest collection, Gregory offers more than 200 accounts of holiday-induced stupidity, including:

* While smoke billowed out of the store, firefighters had to physically restrain enthusiastic shoppers from entering a Great Lakes Mall store during an electrical fire.

* In 1995, officials debated over whom to invite to the city's Christmas tree ceremony: President Bill Clinton or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

* As a joke, Andrew Jackson sent formal invitations to his Christmas ball to a well-known mother-and-daughter prostitute team in Salisbury, North Carolina."

My Review: I picked this one up to have a good laugh during the holiday season. There were definitely some funny bits in here but it wasn't fall off my chair funny the whole way through. Some if the stories felt a bit repetitive and similar, maybe a smaller selection would have made the book as a whole more funny. It was entertaining and to think that these are actual stories of real human stupidity during the holidays. Might be worth picking up for a quick laugh or two to break up that holiday stress.

My Rating: This would be a good one for small doses, just to pick up and read a page or two (it would also make for an entertaining book for bathroom reading for guests). It is definitely not a book to read cover to cover as it gets a little repetitive and looses that comic relief.  I give it a rating of Two Paws and a Stump Wag.