Posted on 12/25/2022 8:37:13 PM PST by Rummyfan
“Lights, please.”
For half a century, it’s been one of the most significant phrases in American Christianity. A prelude to something sacred in an unlikely place: the Gospel of Luke, King James translation, as recited by Linus van Pelt in A Charlie Brown Christmas.
My parents were atheists; I knew almost nothing about Christianity as a child, although I got the lay of the land when I was sent to Catholic school in sixth grade. Before that, my parents—especially my mother—actively worked to keep me and my sister free from religion, Christianity in particular. But we had our gods. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny reigned over us, with great kindness and generosity, and if we came, eventually, to a crisis of faith, we dealt with it privately. My sister and I understood that our feelings about Christmas were very important to our parents. The brief—transmitted in the silent language of the family—was to be happy, because our parents had had terrible childhoods, and instead of working out their pasts in psychoanalysis or “involvement,” they threw themselves into these perfect Christmases. It was the most wonderful, extremely tense time of the year.
My earliest grasp of how Christianity worked came from the Charlie Brown Christmas special—funny, cool, beloved by all. The special was first broadcast in 1965, when Charles Schulz’s Peanuts cartoon strip was in the initial flush of its stupendous popularity (the characters had been on the cover of Time magazine that spring), syndicated in hundreds of American newspapers. Millions of children knew and loved it, so half of the work was already done: We knew that Lucy was crabby and Sally was romantic and Schroeder was single-minded. In that time, television was not an endless range of possibilities, every watcher a Prospero, conjuring up visions on command.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Charles Schultz was a National Treasure. I highly recommend going to the Charles Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa.
Thank you. Merry Christmas!
Why no comment’s?
Thank you for this, Rummyfan! Happier times in America.
“Charles Schultz was a National Treasure.”
He would have lunch every Wednesday at the restaurant where Mrs L worked in Santa Rosa. She says he was the nicest customer they ever had.
L
Nice story!
Charlie brown Christmas is timeless
Today, that would read: "We knew that Lucy was 'butch' and Sally was 'bipolar' and Schroeder was 'autistic.'"
Regards,
Name of restaurant?
Regards,
This ran in the ATLANTIC ??!! What happened?
A friend pointed recently that in the scene when Linus says fear not he drops his security blanket.
That this was a symbol Charles Schultz put into the story.
To fear not and put your trust in Christ the Lord.
That’s what Christmas was all about.
Thats ok...scroll down to see the blurbs of other stories below this one at the site...your faith will be restored...
Charlie Brown almost cured this writer of the usual Atlantic supercilious snark. Almost.
I refuse to click on the leftist publication’s link so I hope this writer, raised by stupid atheists, found God through the Peanuts.
John Ash and Co.
Mrs L and I had our first dinner date there.
L
The sheer number of FReepers who have a personal tie in to so many stories is one of the things I love about this site.
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