Here's the bare-knuckle no-seat-belts use-at-own-risk version:
import datetime
def minimalist_xldate_as_datetime(xldate, datemode):
# datemode: 0 for 1900-based, 1 for 1904-based
return (
datetime.datetime(1899, 12, 30)
+ datetime.timedelta(days=xldate + 1462 * datemode)
)