On this episode of Impolite Conversation, Tim and Dan get into the holiday spirit by talking about the alleged war on Christmas with historian Jarret Ruminski, who is skeptical that the war amounts to much, and then chat about what it’s like to be in a Christmas-obsessed culture and not be Christian. And in One Last Thing, Dan’s been re-reading a classic novel, and Tim recommends a heavenly TV show.

Some of the stuff we talked about this time: Dr. Ruminski mentioned John Gibson’s The War on Christmas, Stephen Nissenbaum’s The Battle for Christmas, and Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind. He also talked about the Coke web site that discusses the origins of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

In our conversation about Hanukkah and related issues, Dan brought up the Friends episode entitled “The One With the Holiday Armadillo” and the South Park song “A Lonely Jew on Christmas,” and brought up the fact that Barbra Streisand has a Christmas album. (She actually has three.

In One Last Thing, Dan recommended A Confederacy of Dunces and Tim discussed this article about getting involved post-election, then recommended the NBC sitcom The Good Place.