Good Old Fashioned Christmas

by Robert Benchley

Presents the author's humorous look at Christmas and winter in Vermont.

Genres: Christmas, Humor, Essays

94 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1981

About the author

Works, including How to Sleep , the film of 1935, and My Ten Years in a Quandary , the book of 1936, of Robert Charles Benchley, humorist, critic, and actor, often pitted an average American against the complexities of modern life.

People best knew Robert Charles Benchley as a newspaper columnist. He began at the Lampoon and meanwhile attended Harvard University and wrote many essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.
From New York City and his peers at the Algonquin Round Table, short style brought acclaim, respect, and success to Benchley to contemporaries in the burgeoning industry.

Benchley contributed best remembered influential topical or absurdist essays to The New Yorker. He also made a name in Hollywood, when his popular success won best short subject at the academy awards of 1935, and his many memorable appearances in such as Foreign Correspondent of Alfred Joseph Hitchcock and a dramatic turn in Nice Girl? . He wrote his legacy in numerous short appearances.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

This certainly wasn't a very Christmasy book -- more like a curmudgeonly take on the holiday season and children. Perhaps it's the difference in periods; I think the period Benchley was writing in (the 1920s) was more conducive to sarcasm and general curmudgeonness. Whatever the difference, it wasn't a very pleasant (or even humorous) glance at Christmas.

[Leslie Siegmund · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slender volume of humorous stories by one of America's funniest writers, all penned between the 1920s and 1940s.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

What passed for high brow humor in the 1920’s doesn’t seem so witty now.