Christmas and Commerce

This is a special Christmas episode of "This American Life" featuring classic stories from the show's first year. Ira Glass introduces the episode, which includes a segment about the frenzy at Toys R Us on Christmas Eve, David Sedaris's "Santaland Diaries" recounting his experiences as a Macy's elf, and David Rakoff's "Christmas Freud," about impersonating Sigmund Freud in a Barney's department store window during the holidays. The episode concludes with a nostalgic audio clip from 1966, capturing a family's Christmas morning and highlighting the imperfect realities of the holiday.