A Christmas Miracle

A few weeks back, Ben and I sat down to our annual viewing of our favorite holiday TV special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas".  Yes, of course, we can always watch it on DVD, but taking time to make the date when it's actually playing is a holiday event we don't like to miss.

Another thing we don't like to miss is the show in its entirety.  So when we viewed it a few weeks back - and witnessed the vivisection ABC did on the show, omitting the snowball throwing, Sally Brown's "tens and twenties" lines, and the entire Lucy-Schroeder "Jingle Bells" exchange, we thought we had inadvertently come upon ABC as owned by Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life".  We sat and grimaced through the Pottersville version, complete with scores of commercials - and bad sound-synching, which made me wonder if perhaps this was the Bulgarian version, but without the Bulgarian subtitles.

As Lucy said of the tree, "No, no - it's all wrong."

So enter Christmas miracle: ABC reran the REAL show last night and we just happened to come upon it and record it, complete with all previously-missing scenes.  We even stopped and started it to catch some things we'd never noticed before, like when Snoopy's decorating his dog house: he nails a stick to the front and then the little beagle gloms himself onto the front with a string of lights and wiggles them into place.  Next time you watch the show, slow this part down.  Trust me - one of the best moments ever.



The show itself is a Christmas miracle.  When it first aired back in 1965, it got low ratings. It spoke of the Christian, non-commercial meaning of Christmas unabashedly - no one else had the chutzpah to do that on prime time TV.  Then it slowly and silently built momentum over the years.  Today, you can't listen to holiday radio without hearing "Linus and Lucy" - the song played when the Peanuts dance their frugs, ponies and watusis in the school auditorium.  It's not a Christmas song: wasn't written as one.  But it and the iconic TV special it's from is so firmly ensconced now into our culture as part of Christmas, it might as well have been entitled, "Linus and Lucy's Christmas Shindig." (Side note: Ben and I love this moment so much, we planned to play the song at our wedding as the background for our wedding party to dance to.  When the d.j. attempted to pop the cd out of the jewel case, it broke in half, necessitating me to "think fast" and have him play "Gettin' Jiggy Wid It" instead.  Wasn't quite the same...)



Thanks, Sparky, for the Christmas miracle that will always endure in my heart.