From Booklist
Christmas. Whether they love it or hate it, remember it fondly or shudder at the thought, readers are sure to find a kindred spirit wrapped up among the pages of this premiere holiday collection, part of the esteemed magazine's popular anthology series. Culled from the past 75 years, fiction, poetry, and memoir explore this most celebrated of holidays in all its guises. Gathering a merry cast of regular contributors, the list of notable authors and artists is as lengthy as the wish list of a starry-eyed five-year-old sitting on Santa's knee. From Alice Munro's poignant "The Turkey Season" to John O'Hara's urbane "Christmas Poem," the cream of the literary crop is represented. Strewn throughout are samples of favorite magazine features as well as its incomparable cartoons and signature covers. On Thurber and Trillin! On Keillor and Mencken! Add a dash of Nash and top it off with a frosting of White and you have a timeless gift of fine literature that is destined to last beyond the holiday season. Carol Haggas
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FROM THE PUBLISHER

Out of the pages of America's most beloved magazine come eighty years of good cheer and inspiring emotions for the holidays-plus the occasional comical coal in the stocking-in one incomparable collection. Sublime and ridiculous, sentimental and searing, Christmas at The New Yorker is a gift of great writing and drawing by literary legends and laugh-out-loud cartoonists.

Here are seasonal stories, poems, memoirs and more, including such classics as John Cheever's 1949 story, Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor, about an elevator operator in an exclusive building who experiences the fickle power of charity . . . James Thurber's 1927 satire, A Visit to Saint Nicholas in the Hemingway Style ("It was the night before Christmas. The house was very quiet. No creatures were stirring in the house. There weren't even any mice stirring. The stockings had been hung carefully by the chimney. The children hoped that Saint Nicholas would come and fill them.") . . . and Richard Ford's acerbic and elegiac 1998 story, Creche, in which an unmarried Hollywood lawyer spends a wistful holiday with her sister's estranged husband and kids.

Here, too, are S. J. Perelman's 1936 Waiting for Santy, a playlet in the style of a Clifford Odets labor drama (the setting: "The sweatshop of Santa Claus, North Pole") and Vladimir Nabokov's heartbreaking 1975 story, Christmas, in which a father grieving for his lost son in a world "ghastly with sadness" sees a tiny miracle on Christmas Eve. And it wouldn't be Christmas-or The New Yorker-without dozens of cartoons by Addams, Arno, Chast and others, or a virtuoso Roger Angell carol or two ("Toss down a warm noggin with/Lauren Holly, Beverly Cleary/Christopher Reeve, and Timothy Leary.")From Jazz Age to New Age, E.B. White to Garrison Keillor, these works represent nearly a century of wonderful keepsakes for Christmas, from The New Yorker to you.

Spend CHRISTMAS AT THE NEW YORKER with:JOHN CHEEVER, Christmas is a Sad Season for the PoorJOHN UPDIKE, Christmas CardsH.L. MENCKEN, Stare Decisis (A Christmas Tale)ALICE MUNRO, The Turkey SeasonJAMES THURBER, A Visit from Santa in the Hemingway StyleKEN KESEY, Skid-row SantaJOHN O'HARA, Christmas PoemVLADIMIR NABOKOV, ChristmasGARRISON KEILLOR, A Christmas StoryRICHARD FORD, CrecheE.B. WHITE, CommentsPETER DEVRIES, Flesh and the DevilWILLIAM MAXWELL, HomecomingKARL SHAPIRO, Christmas EveOGDEN NASH, All's Noel That Ends NoelMARIANNE MOORE, Saint NicholasCALVIN TRILLIN, Christmas in QatarROGER ANGELL, Greetings, Friends!SALLY BENSON, Spirit of Christmas