Hello, you've made it to the back of the book, a podcast devoted to conversations about art and culture.

I'm your host, Christopher Scalia of the American Enterprise Institute.

Today, we're recording a special Yuletide episode of the podcast with the critic, essayist, storyteller, and poet, Joseph Bottom.

Jody is the author of several books, including The Decline of the Novel,

An Anxious Age, the Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America, as well as Christmas-related

books, his memoir of his childhood, Christmas Plains, and most recently, Frankencence, gold, and

Mur, a Christmas Christomathy. He's currently the visiting professor in conservative thought and

policy at the Benson Center for the study of Western civilization at the University of Colorado

in Boulder. Jody, welcome to the back of the civilization at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Jody, welcome to the back of the book.

Thank you so much for having me.

You are certainly established a reputation as one of our foremost chroniclers of Christmas and the Christmas spirit, which is the reason I wanted to have you on for this

episode. We're recording this conversation just eight days before Christmas. And really,

apart from Santa Claus, I can't think of a better guest for this episode. In addition to the

books I mentioned that focus on Christmas, you've written two Christmas songs.

Some come to see the Lord and joy will keep us. And those are both available on Spotify.

And you also have a new essay, I think it's a brand new essay in The Lamp, called The Almost There.

So you obviously like writing about Christmas.

What is it about Christmas that you find so fertile for writing material?

Well, there's a certain kind of large author who loves Christmas.

When Dickens died, a reporter told a little girl on the street and asked her what she thought

in London, and she said, does that mean we won't have Christmas anymore?

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