You don’t go to Larry David for cheer.
Laughs, sure, but the holly-jolly, holiday-spirit stuff is just the kind of thing the “Seinfeld” creator has skewered for decades now. Note the classic episode where the whole cast eventually comes to love the idea of the made-up holiday, Festivus.
So, it was an inspired choice when former Vanity Fair editor, Graydon Carter, recently asked David for an essay about his personal holiday traditions for his website, Airmail.
The piece is topped with a hilarious illustration of David donning a Scrooge-like robe and floppy nightcap as he rises Christ-like out a Chinese food delivery carton.
David starts with a quick dismissal of the holiday story.
That poem, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,'" says the comedian, "which in my mind was all about a home invasion, scared the bejesus out of me and kept me up until the wee hours." And soon he's off to throw sour shade all over Santa's big day.
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He continues: "I’m a creature of habit and can’t tolerate anything that throws me off my normal routine. That’s why I detest all holidays, but none as much as Christmas.”
So what about Christmas particularly does David disdain?
“The loathsome music,” he begins. “The movies with their ridiculous, treacly sentiments. The presents — thinking about them, shopping for them (never without resentment), and the attendant pile of garbage that accumulates from opening them, an environmental disaster simultaneously taking place in living rooms across the country.”
If you’ve ever seen an episode of David’s caustically hilarious HBO show, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” – a scripted documentary about the comedian’s life – you’d know he’s not shy about letting other in on his unpopular stances on things. His real life friends admit they have also felt the brunt of his bluntness when it comes to the December rituals.
As Page Six reported, David explained that he has made it a point to consistently decry Christmas and all its trappings for so long that eventually all his friends just stopped inviting him to holiday gatherings.
“The invites began to wane until, eventually, they ceased altogether,” David says, “and then it finally happened — I was to be alone on Christmas Day… All those years of complaining and kvetching finally paid off. I was the envy of everyone I knew.”
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And so David has chiseled everyone else’s holiday expectations away to have finally carved himself a little slice of Christmas he can tolerate.
“Eating Chinese food by myself on Christmas Day,” David concludes, “has become a cherished yearly ritual, which I look forward to like the ending of construction on the house next door.”
Season 11 of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is now available for streaming on HBO Max.
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