A Charlie Brown Christmas | dual personalities

Tag: A Charlie Brown Christmas

December 3, 2015

“Every Christmas it’s the same. I always end up playing a shepherd.”*

by chuckofish

Well, as they say, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Lots of old friends are showing up.

I’m sure it’s the same at your house, right?

I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas the other night, but not the 50th Anniversary Special which was un-watchable. I mean I tried, but woof. As always, I enjoyed A Charlie Brown Christmas which I was no doubt watching for the 50th time!

Indeed, I remember watching it for the first time 50 years ago and loving it so much. All my friends watched it. I became a huge Peanuts fan after that. I had a lot of Peanuts stuff.

I insisted on reading the book aloud at our family Christmas Eve celebration the next year (everyone read something) and annoyed my older brother by trying to read in the voices of the kids on the television special. He was extremely intolerant of me in this respect. I felt his judgement keenly. (I was in the fifth grade and he was a cool tenth grader.)

Siblings. How do we survive the judgement of our older siblings? (Well, I guess my dual personality can tell you.) That was the last year we had our family reading and sing-along on Christmas Eve. Our older brother went to a party at his girlfriend’s house the following year, and was always busy elsewhere after that.

C’est la vie. Funnily enough, I think our brother resurrected this tradition for his own family. I’m sure they never read A Charlie Brown Christmas.

*Shermy in A Charlie Brown Christmas

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December 5, 2012

What’s going on here?

by chuckofish

Christmas cacti are kind of the perfect plants. You put so little effort into them, and they reward you with such extravagant gifts!

Gosh almighty, aren’t they something?

Well, I for one would not want to let their heroics go unnoticed! Bravo.

Here’s a little something I found tucked away in an upstairs closet the other day.

A Charlie Brown Christmas snow globe! How nice to discover an ‘old’ decoration which seems ‘new’ again!

I haven’t watched A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) yet this year, but it’s a good idea. I was in the fourth grade when it debuted, the first animated Peanuts special (and still the best). It is astonishing to me that Charles Schulz got away with having Linus explain the true meaning of Christmas by actually reciting Luke 2:8-14 from the King James Version of the Bible. It is a modern miracle. The success of the show was and continues to be a perfect vindication. (A total of 50% of the televisions in the United States were tuned to the first broadcast. A Charlie Brown Christmas won an Emmy and a Peabody award, and is today considered to be one of the most beloved animated holiday specials of all time.)

Out of the mouths of babes, as they say:

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.'”

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.