BookSmart Tulsa Scores With Onion Christmas Evening

I suppose it was an attempt at Political Correctness that caused BookSmart Tulsa to start an event advertised as Christmas Exposed with an adorable rabbi, complete with yarmulke and stole. He was too self deprecating for my taste, but others found him amusing. There was a DJ from NPR who read this awful, manipulative 10 year old story (that I suspect will be read again next year), which tries to make you believe is written from the point of view of a young child. Long story short, the author kid's family finds some poor family waiting for a bus in the rain. The dad wants to give them a ride to the next bus stop because it has more shelter, and ends up taking them home and letting them have his own kids' presents that they had unwrapped Christmas morning but had left under the tree. One of the poor kids doesn't have a sweater, so the mother gives her the only sweater owned by one of the not previously poor kids - although now she is the poor kid, since she will be the cold one, not to mention that her presents have been given to strangers, so she is a really poor kid. Then the most stupid line of the evening comes - (something like) - this was the day that the children learned that giving is better than receiving. Huh? These are young kids and none of them were giving away anything - just had parents take their Christmas presents away and give it stranger kids. Formulaic heartwarming and not even done well. But then Gary from The Onion took over and made the evening worthwhile. Hysterical! Two of the recalled Christmas toys reported in the Onion were Uncle Harry's Uncannily Realistic Play Money and Black Widow Barbie With Mate 'N' Kill Action. And then there was the article titled Vatican Employees Unable To Relax At Holiday Party With Pope Around - and more. I laughed so much that I actually bought his book - full price - and not in e-book form. Good times!