The Dysfunctional Family Christmas Songbook

by Lenore Skenazy and John Boswell

Somewhere, someone is having a perfect Christmas, filled with chestnuts roasting and sleigh bells ringing... Screw 'em. Most of us are having just the opposite: a nutcrackin' nightmare of anger, hurt... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767919076
• ISBN13: 9780767919074
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Crown Archetype
• Length: 48 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.4" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

Dysfunctionally Delighted

Bought five copies of this for my sisters. We all held our sides as we encountered lyrics that made us all say, "Oh that's so (family member)!" The laughs were worth every penny and I recommend to all people willing to admit they come from a dysfunctional family. Not for the traditional or devout. Must have a sense of humor and ability to identify family foibles.

It's a riot! This is not a "family" songbook by any means!

This book is full of traditional Christmas songs with traditional music but not so traditional words. My in-laws will love it but I wouldn't dare show it to my parents!

Thanks, I Needed That!

This book massages every Christmas-induced ache. It's great to read sassy, spot-on lyrics that actually fit the music. I agree it's not for everyone, but this book is very funny!

Just Like My Family Christmases...Only Funny!

I thought this was such a great idea for a book, but I wasn't sure how it would sound to actually sing the songs. If you can get through them without laughing, you're doing better than I did! Really, Really fun for the whole...Okay, for MOST of the family! I saw a concert in New York that featured opera singers singing these songs, and that convinced me to buy the book for my family sing along. Loads of fun.

Hilarious, if R-rated, parodies

Every time I pick up this book, I laugh myself silly at the inventive and sometimes painfully true lyrics: "We must have a perfect Christmas"; "O, what a fight, the fists were really flying..."; "Silent wife, angry wife..."; "Away in a manger, is that where you dressed?" and more. And surprisingly, the simple piano accompaniment is not bad at all. Call me over-protective, but this is not humor I intend to share with the younger ones. "Whose Child Is This?" and "Here I Come A-Borrowing" make me laugh hard, and the parodies do not diminish the beauty of the original carols for me. But I wonder how the originals might survive in young minds after learning these very funny, but sometimes racy lyrics. And I am not too keen on answering, in the setting of the holidays, some of the questions that this content would probably provoke. Not all jokes I hear or tell are suitable for youngsters, nor do I think they have to be. Taken as grown-up humor, this little book is a marvelously effective antidote to the saccharine airs wafting through this "most wonderful time of the year".