Linus lays it on the line about the true meaning of Christmas.\u00a0 Even as a non-believer, I couldn\u2019t escape the perfection in this stilted, childish, amateurish production.\u00a0 The writing, the plot, the atmosphere, the iconic images, frozen lakes, Christmas tree lots, old time school auditoriums, the fantastic build up and climactic recital of the Christmas story, and of course the beyond classic musical score.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
A couple things.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve pointed out, our \u2018war\u2019 on Christmas has been a long time coming.\u00a0 Charlie Brown\u2019s struggles show that this was already embedded in our culture in the glory days of those wonder years gone by.\u00a0 While much has been made of Schultz\u2019s own spiritual walk, that by the end he considered himself a secular humanist (though many who knew him suggested this was out of context of his rather complex mixture of faith and skepticism \u2013 which the next year\u2019s classic \u201cIt\u2019s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown\u201d would aptly illustrate), it\u2019s clear that at this moment in time, Schultz was letting young Linus speak for all believers including himself.<\/p>\n
In college, I picked up a TV Guide Christmas special rating the great Christmas Programs.\u00a0 This was near the bottom of the top five.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Guess.\u00a0 It was TV Guide.\u00a0 Too much of that religion stuff, unlike the so much cooler \u201cHow the Grinch Stole Christmas<\/em>\u201d (I also love), which, as the writer pointed out, avoided being too religious.\u00a0 I still remember that.\u00a0 Too religious?\u00a0Agnostic though I was, I knew it was all based on the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus.\u00a0 I may not have believed it, but I knew it.\u00a0 How troubling it was that we could look at a clear fact and want to deny it simply because we wanted to deny it.\u00a0 We were supposed to be the rationale ones!\u00a0 Ah, but that is for another post.<\/p>\n For now, enjoy the wonderful diction of the youngster reading the KJV of Luke 2, and capture some of that magical, spiritual boost that even I\u00a0felt all those years ago in my most fervent secularism.\u00a0 Fun note: Linus drops his blanket when he says \u201cfear not, for behold\u2026\u201d\u00a0 The only time, to that point, he willingly drops his blanket \u2013 which throughout the special he goes to great lengths to defend.\u00a0 It\u2019s also worth noting that Schultz had a difficult time convincing the higher ups to leave the Scripture reading in.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always wondered why, since we are told that even at that point in American history, we were still this button down, W.A.S.P. society.\u00a0 Who would have cared?\u00a0 Makes you wonder.\u00a0 Don\u2019t think I don\u2019t!\u00a0 Anyway, here is Linus, doing what Linus was drawn to do:<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Linus lays it on the line about the true meaning of Christmas.\u00a0 Even as a non-believer, I couldn\u2019t escape the perfection in this stilted, childish, amateurish production.\u00a0 The writing, the plot, the atmosphere, the iconic images, frozen lakes, Christmas tree lots, old time school auditoriums, the fantastic build up and climactic recital of the Christmas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n