It’s almost Christmas, one of the great festivals of Christianity, so in this episode we tackle festivity.  Haley just finished a book on the topic by the fabulous Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper and is now on a Pieper kick. When we were thinking about Pieper aficionados who could make philosophy a lot of fun to podcast about, we knew Bo Bonner was the man for the job and he did not disappoint!

Bo is a Catholic convert, father of four, and the Director of the Zita Institute as well as Director of Mission and Ministry at Mercy College of Health Sciences. He’s an instructor for the Faith Journey Catechetical Institute for the Diocese of Des Moines, and Co-Host of “The UnCommon Good” on Iowa Catholic Radio. He’s also hilarious and a blast to talk to.

In this episode we discuss how our culture fails in it’s celebrations of Christmas and what an authentic festival of Christmas would look like. We touch on everything from Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to hot takes about ugly Christmas sweater parties. We tried not to say things that will offend anybody but we probably failed so our apologies in advance!

Christmas is on it’s way so grab a glass of egg nog and enjoy the episode.

This post contains affiliate links.

Things we talked about:

In Tune with the World by Josef Pieper

Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper

Divine Madness by Josef Pieper

Things we talked about:

This article about Christmas Festivity on Public Discourse

Hayes Carll song Jesus and Elvis

Follow Bo:

* twitter 

* radio show

* The Zita Institute

This episode is sponsored by Louise Boychuk of Vitae Fertility Education

Louise is a Marquette Method of NFP Instructor and provides one-on-one teaching to clients anywhere in the world over live video. She’s written two comprehensive user manuals (one for regular cycles, and one for the breastfeeding transition), so clients have a resource to help explain the science and research behind the method. For more information about the method, to register for services, or to sign up for a free consultation, Louise can be reached through the