That time is almost upon us, my new favorite part of the Christmas season: the annual holiday (that’s right Fox News, I said “holiday” – blow me) episode of my favorite television comedy series Community. You can check out a preview of the episode here below.

Last year the show delivered a classic send-up of the Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated holiday specials of the 1960s while delving into the complex personality of the show’s sweetly enigmatic pop culture obsessive Abed (Danny Pudi). This year finds Greendale Community College’s most diverse (in more ways than one) study group getting involved in the school’s annual Christmas pageant when the Greendale Glee Club gets sidelined.

In the clip Abed must convince his friend, roommate, fellow geek, and potential hetero life mate Troy (Donald Glover) to participate in the pageant, but Troy is more than a little reluctant due to his being a Jehovah’s Witness. Abed, armed with an imagination that must never stop working even when he sleeps, brings up the possibility of a clever “loophole” that eventually turns into a rap.

Glover is also a rapper who performs and records under the name Childish Gambino and just recently released his fourth CD, Camp, so it’s no surprise that he’s a maestro of the mic. Pudi matches him beat for beat. I would love to see a full-length version of this tune become a holiday (that’s right, I said it again) perennial.

The Community holiday episode “Regional Holiday Music” will also feature regular series cast members Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, and Chevy Chase and guest star Taran Killam of Saturday Night Live as Greendale’s choir director Cory Radison. The episode airs on Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 8 p.m. and will be the final one aired before the show begins its much-derided hiatus. Don’t miss it; I know I won’t.

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[Source: NBC]