I have a Christmas confession: there’s something I love about the CBC.

To some National Post readers, this might seem like the equivalent of saying Al-Qaeda had a few good ideas. But hear me out. At this festive time of the year — in the spirit of peace and love — let me make the case for why one specific program that used to air on CBC Radio deserves our affection.

I’m talking about Stuart McLean’s The Vinyl Café that ran from the mid-1990s through to 2015. It was an homage to old-school radio variety shows of the 1930s and 40s — a hodge-podge of music and stories that, year after year, increasingly centred on the fictional world of one Toronto family.