Kathleen Winters, Anthony Zadra, Lyreshia Ghostlon-Green, and Lori Constable Photo by Molly Jay Photography

The playwright behind A Nice Family Christmas is Phil Olson, whose name I had not encountered before. It turns out that he is the highly prolific and successful creator of the Don't Hug Me... series of comedies, along with many others. How successful? A Nice Family Christmas opened in 2016 in Los Angeles and subsequently opened in seven other cities that same season. Olson is now based in Los Angeles but grew up in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, so has an affinity for the play's suburban Twin Cities setting.

A Nice Family Christmas is directed by Ben Thietje, who displays a keen sense of timing that keeps the jokes coming without disrupting the narrative. The family is gathering on Christmas Eve in the condo of Helen, a widow who is the mother of grown children Michael, Carl, and Stacia–all present; daughter of Grandma (no name provided), who has unexpectedly come up from Florida, which she describes as "God's waiting room"; and sister-in-law to Uncle Bob, another unexpected guest. He claims he was invited based on Helen having told him he, after her husband's funeral, that he could stop at any time. But that was three years ago, and this is his first appearance. Later in the evening, Michael's wife Jill, who was supposedly spending Christmas with her parents, shows up to add to the havoc.

All but one of this assembly has something they are hiding or avoiding, and it seems the goal of each family members is to draw back the blinds and push the others into taking action. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, except among this crew it plays out in the context of competitive and awkward relationships. These don't make for the most empathetic interactions, but they do lend themselves to funny one-liners and situations, which Olson dishes out at the pace of a latter-day Neil Simon. The lone celebrant not hiding anything is Grandma; on the contrary, she reveals too much of everything. Much of it is clearly invented and most of it is randy. Grandma enjoys letting her family know she is not the docile senior citizen they expect her to be.

The lynchpin of the story is that Carl is a barely employed newspaper journalist who accepts an assignment from his editor to do a story about a typical, nice family Christmas gathering. Without telling his kinfolk why, he takes notes throughout their evening, raising suspicions all around. Another running theme is Mom's declaration that there is a contest in which each of them must do something unselfish for one of the others, with a prize for everyone who meets the criteria and a grand prize for the family member who performs the most unselfish act. Of course, the kicker is that these acts of goodness need to be done out of genuine caring and not merely to win the contest, which is a tough challenge for the three competitive siblings.

The cast are all gamely funny, snide, indifferent, supportive, agitated, morose, and whatever other emotions are called for in the course of these two hours–none of those moods lasting long as the mayhem of family dysfunction barrels forth. Patrick Kozicky does a great job as the overlooked middle child, Carl, eager to pull the rug from under big brother Michael, played with a sense of detached superiority by Sam Sweere. Lyreshia Ghostlon-Green is winning as the confident youngest child, Stacia, who seems to have done everything right in her life, a status she smugly enjoys.

Lori Constable is terrific as Mom/Helen, warm and supportive to each of her children, while allowing for her natural tendency to be a joker, tolerating Grandma's oversharing and outright invention, and restraining her brother-in-law, Uncle Bob, who has appeared out of the past with a surprising agenda of his own. As Uncle Bob, Anthony Zadra is hilarious, depicting a character who is boorish, clueless, and has a tendency to push too far, yet is weirdly loveable. Kathleen Winters is a hoot delivering Grandma's litany of one-liners that alternate between criticizing the softness she sees in today's young people and bragging about her decidedly not soft sexploits. Waverly Ann McCollum's Jill is meant to be high-strung and overly reactive, which the actor pulls off nicely.

Scenic designer Greg Vanselow has created a living-dining room that resembles countless such spaces I have seen in contemporary condos, with furniture that is pleasant enough but doesn't match, the remnants of sets of furniture that once occupied a larger family home. On one wall, whatever was hanging has been replaced with kitschy Christmas décor, while another wall displays family photos, all feeling very authentic. Eleanor Schanilec's costumes are tailored to represent each character's persona, with Helen covered in Christmas regalia from head to toe, Uncle Bob in a garish Christmas sweater, Stacia in a tasteful Christmas sweater, and so on.

If anyone closely keeps track, there are numerous ways in which this family reveals itself to be artificially created for the purpose of entertaining us. Michael is said to be a doctor, but nothing about him tracks with this conceit. Similarly, at the onset we are given to believe that Michael is the "favorite" son and grandson, but once a joke is made of this, nothing in the play reenforces this notion. There are wisecracks about a family member's admission to having been in a recovery program, with nothing in the way of support or acknowledgement of this being a healthy and admirable step, which one would expect of one's immediate family in this day and age.

And this: Stacia has a child she has left with the sitter–really, on Christmas? This just seems like an easy way for the playwright to avoid having to include an actual child in the play's casting requirements. And Grandma is unaware of Stacia's marital status? Oh, come on. That feels like another shortcut, a way to fill the audience in, by having to bring Grandma up to speed. Actually, Stacia's engagement with motherhood feels peripheral to the rest of the narrative and could just as easily have been left out.

So, no, A Nice Family Christmas is not a reliable illustration of a contemporary family dragging their issues around a table as in The Humans or August: Osage County. Those families have some extreme dysfunction, but also feel genuine. Olson has created a cartoon version of such a family, with shortcuts that enable him to get through a lot of issues without delving with authenticity into any one of them. Taken on those terms, it is a frame for hanging lots of jokes and provoking a lot of laughter. Which is no small stocking stuffer. Hearty laughter is a great feeling, a welcome release from the strain of living with the 2025 newsfeed. A Nice Family Christmas ladles out generous portions of laughter from a bubbly punch bowl that tickles our funny bone going down, even if it doesn't stay too long in our system.

A Nice Family Christmas runs through December 21, 2025, at at Lyric Arts Main Street Stage, 420 East Main Street, Anoka MN. For tickets and information, please call 763-422-1838 or visit lyricarts.org.

Playwright: Phil Olson; Director: Ben Thietje; Scenic Design: Greg Vanselow; Costume Design: Eleanor Schanilec; Lighting Design: Ellie Simonett; Sound Design: Bailey Fenn; Props Design: Vicky Erickson; Intimacy Choreography: Callie Aho; Stage Manager: Gabriella Mancl-Saxon; Assistant Stage Manager: Maddie Ronning.

Cast: Lori Constable (Mom/Helen), Lyreshia Ghostlon-Green (Stacia), Patrick Kozicky (Carl), Waverly Ann McCollum (ill), Sam Sweere (Michael), Kathleen Winters (Grandma), Anthony Zadra (Uncle Bob).