“A Joyous Season” lampoons good holidays gone bad

Are you already weary of the holiday season? Have you had your fill of good cheer, gaudy gift-wrapped presents, sugar cookies, tinsel ground into the carpet, blue-plastic snowflakes, and saccharine television specials? Do you wince when you see Santa Claus with the three wise men at the Nativity scene? Do you mutter something rude under your breath when an acquaintance issues cheerful holiday greetings? If so, A Joyous Season is a book that may brighten your outlook during the merry season. Instead of bemoaning your fate, relax with an alternative to the frenzy of the holidays. This entertaining book is light, satirical, and—above all—refreshingly crude.

Cleverly penned by Patrick Dennis, A Joyous Season is a marvelous farce that brings back some very fond memories. I was 13 years old when I first perused this volume. My mother read portions of it to me and my 11-year-old brother, replacing the more colorful language with gentle, generic terms (in light of our tender years). I finally decided I could do better than the bowdlerized version, so I borrowed her copy and savaged it eagerly, thoroughly, and rapidly. This season, approximately 40 years later, I purchased my own copy. It’s still as satirical and acid as I remember. In some ways, A Joyous Season is even more hysterical, as I now understand all the undertones. It is rich, wicked, profane, and irreverent.

The story is told in first person by a precocious 10-year-old named Kerrington. He recounts with all the particulars and a certain amount of relish the marital split of his parents—caused by dysfunctional family activities initiated during the holiday season. The book at the most basic level is a dissection of divorce with fresh perspective. But it is more—much more—than a commentary of discord and dissention.

The writing is deliberate and utterly malicious. Contemptuous of his players as he has drawn them, the writer details with a fine hand their idiosyncrasies, and slices and dices to the core. They are unlikable caricatures, nicely fleshed, but still larger than life and deliberately drawn with bold, outlandish strokes. The book is wicked, because it rings so true. There is no delicacy here—none at all—and yet the tone and tempo are just right. The words are carefully chosen, even down to the malapropisms voiced by the narrator; they are intentional and humorous slights.

A Joyous Season isn’t fluff; nor is it literary. It is, however, plenty interesting and still very contemporary satire. It presents with a jaundiced eye personal relationships; family members, including sisters, grandparents, and uncles; interfering bystanders; significant and insignificant others; daily tasks made into major production; and—to top it off and tie the threads together—all the joys of the holiday season. Nothing is spared; no one is safe. And that’s what makes it malicious fun. This little satirical volume is definitely a keeper. It will brighten your holiday with its refreshing honesty, forthright hostility, and unstinting portraiture of the joyous season.