THIS AMERICAN LIFE: CHRISTMAS AND COMMERCE (RADIO)

Summary

One in this weekly series that looks at a different, specific aspect of life in the United States in each episode. Episodes contain several segments, or "acts," each of which relates to the established theme. This installment, "Christmas and Commerce," is devoted to three stories that concern the shopping side of Christmas. In the first act, host Ira Glass takes advantage of his Jewish "objective outsider" status to tag along with a father and his teenage son while they take a last-minute trip to Toys 'R' Us on Christmas Eve. In between sound bites of the father's desperate search for a ninety-dollar "twin-doll" set, Glass decides that while "you can always tell who someone is in a crisis," you can really tell who someone is at Christmas time as people are "the same as they are the rest of the time, just more so." In the second act of the program, and the acknowledged centerpiece, author David Sedaris reads his essay "The Santaland Diaries"; the host explains that excerpts have appeared on the program "Morning Edition" in the past, prompting countless requests for the full story. In "Diaries," Sedaris recounts his experiences working for several weeks as an "elf" at Macy's Department Store in New York City. Sedaris recalls being hired despite failing the retailer's drug test; his diminutive stature all but guaranteed him the position when he walked in the door, he surmises. He goes on to relate several anecdotes that illustrate how ridiculous many holiday routines have become; bratty kids physically assault Sedaris, and mothers pester him to lie to their children about this store's particular Santa Claus. In the third act of the program, an actor hired to portray Sigmund Freud for two weeks while sitting in the window of Barney's department store in New York discusses his experience dealing with confused Christmas shoppers. He also tells an anecdote about bringing friends into the window to "play patients" for the display; while they all initially laughed at the ridiculous artifice of it all, he explains, they invariably left the "session" in tears. Before Glass signs off at the end of the program, he plays a humorous, thirty-year-old audiotape in which "This American Life" contributor John Connors's family opens presents on Christmas day.

(Network affiliation varies: local broadcast, November 1995-June 1996; on NPR, June 1996-June 1997; on PRI, July 1997- .)

Details

• NETWORK: NPR National Public Radio
• DATE: December 20, 1996 7:00 PM
• RUNNING TIME: 0:59:19
• COLOR/B&W: N/A
• CATALOG ID: R:16107
• GENRE: Radio - Public affairs/Documentaries; Radio - Talk/Interviews
• SUBJECT HEADING: Christmas; Department stores - New York City; Shopping
• SERIES RUN: WBEZ (Chicago, IL) - Radio series, 1995-
• COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

• Ira Glass … Host
• John Connors
• Sigmund Freud
• David Sedaris