Fox News has a nice little piece about the Christmas special that turns 40 this year. The article also has a listing of when a handful of Christmas specials will air during the next few weeks, though they don't mention my favorites--The Little Drummer Boy and The Year without a Santa Claus--and do mention A Rugrats Kwanzaa.
Excerpt:
Schulz, the creator of Charlie Brown and the rest of the "Peanuts" comic strip gang, never doubted that the program he'd written was good, Mendelson said. Schulz, who died in 2000, considered it his favorite of the "Peanuts" TV specials.
"I guess you can have an animated scene where you have a kid read from the Bible," Mendelson said of the show, in which Charlie is depressed by the commercialization of Christmas until he is reminded of its unchanged meaning.
The sermon falls to Linus. "I can tell you what Christmas is about," he says, recounting the story of Christ's birth and ending with, "Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, goodwill toward men."
