It’s
that time of year again – the period from late October through late
December where we go through Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas,
complete with pumpkin picking and trick-or-treating, Butterball and
football, and decked halls and snowfalls. In terms of entertainment,
we have costumes, parades, and the Rockettes, along with numerous
television specials and holiday music releases. However, nothing
captures the pop culture spirit of the season like the Charlie
Brown TV specials. Good old Chuck, Linus and Lucy, Snoopy, and
the rest of the Peanuts gang epitomize the holidays like no
one else.
If
you don’t have the time (or the stomach) to watch all the holiday
programming that will be overwhelming the airwaves over the next
couple of months, your best bets are the Charlie Brown
specials, including It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown;
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving; and A Charlie Brown
Christmas. These are all available on DVD, but there’s
something magical about watching them on network television during
the season.
In
terms of holiday music, you can’t do better than the soundtracks
to the Charlie Brown specials. As enjoyable as holiday
releases by major and independent artists can be, they don’t
compare to the beauty and innocence of the scores for the Peanuts
specials. There are several albums that cover the music of the
Peanuts shows, but I really recommend the actual soundtracks
to the programs composed and performed by Vince Gauraldi. Like the
shows, his timeless Charlie Brown recordings exude the peace,
contentment, and happiness of the holidays.
--Raj
Manoharan
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