The Slice: ’Tis the season to pull out the Bing Crosby cheat sheet

This is the time of year when you have to be careful about what you say.

You see, admitting to never having watched a certain holiday movie or animated Christmas TV show can invite verbal abuse.

“What? You mean you have never seen it? Ever? How can that be? It’s a classic! Did you grow up in a cult or something?”

The list of films and television shows making up the holiday canon is fairly long. They always come up in conversation in December. So there are quite a few opportunities to be judged by friends or co-workers.

“Never? You have not seen ‘A Very Chipmunk Christmas’? You’re an American, right?”

Even if you have never aspired to be a repository of pop culture knowledge, you might not enjoy being regarded as a freak because you have not seen some annually rebroadcast children’s special from the 1960s.

One option, of course, is to lie. Instead of trying to justify your existence in light of the fact that you have not viewed some arguably obscure movie, you can just nod and mumble some acknowledgement. “Oh, yes, that’s a must-see.”

Or you can always debate the definition of a life well lived. You can decline to apologize for not having spent 100,000 hours watching reruns.

But the person who just learned that you have never seen “Santa’s Hernia” will not be moved.

Here’s what he will say: “You’ve never seen it? Are you kidding me?”

It’s worth noting that the whole business of labeling this or that holiday entertainment a classic is highly subjective. Some feel strongly about productions that simply are not on everyone’s Top 10.

The truth is, only a handful of seasonal movies and shows approach universal familiarity.

Still, that has never stopped fans of “Reindeer Riot” from insinuating that those who have not seen it are strange and possibly untrustworthy.

There’s no snob quite like a holiday movies/TV shows snob.

But if you do not possess an encyclopedic recall of every Christmas show ever made, there’s a good chance you already know that.

Today’s Slice question: What happened to your model trains?