Christmas is coming soon, which means candy canes, Nat King Cole, decorated trees,

and people saying all kinds of ridiculous things on social media about how Christmas was originally a pagan holiday.

Not just that. All the Grinchers out there want you to feel bad about celebrating Christmas.

So they're going to tell you Christmas is too commercial,

and that nobody really knows when Jesus was born,

and that it's a wonderful life is just a lot of moralistic therapeutic deism.

Here's the thing.

The Grinches have it all wrong.

I'm Joshua Gibbs, and my latest book is The 25th, new and selected Christmas essays.

In my new book, I argue that Christmas doesn't need to be reformed, doesn't need to be reimagined, doesn't need to be edited, and that it's just fine the way it is.

Christmas doesn't need us. We need Christmas. You can order the 25th right now on Amazon or on the Surrey website.

Hello and welcome to Close Reads,

part two of Walker Percy's The Moviegoer.

I am Tim McIntosh.

And I am Heidi White.

And today, you guys, we are proceeding without our wonderful host, David Kern.

So sad. David is the usual, I know, he's the usual host of this show, but he and his wife, Bethany, have opened up a bookstore in Concord, North Carolina.

And I believe, Heidi, am I right yesterday was actually the grand opening?

Yes, it was indeed, the grand opening. And so David is, he's working so hard. Yeah, he really is.

And so we are letting him off the hook on recording this week. We're all grieving deeply, but we're hoping he's

selling his books like hotcakes. I don't know exactly why hotcakes sell faster than anything

else. Like that's a warrant to saying. Yeah. I mean, there it is. So we're really hoping that

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