Christmas 2011 - A Charlie Brown Christmas

Dale and I caught A Charlie Brown Christmas on television the other night. It's my favorite holiday special. Sam, Pete and I loved watching this as kids and waited with anticipation for it to be on.

Christmas 2011 - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Part 2

From Wikipedia:

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a Christmas television special produced in stop motion animation by Rankin/Bass. It first aired Sunday, December 6,1964, on the NBC television network in the USA, and was sponsored by General Electric under the the umbrella title of The General Electric Fantasy Hour."

"The special was based on the Johnny Marks song by the same name; the song taken from the 1939 poem of the same title written by Marks' brother-in-law, Robert L. May. Since 1972, the special has aired on CBS affilliate television stations with the network unveiling a high-definition, digitally remastered version of the program in 2005. As with A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph no longer airs just once annually, but several times during the Christmas and holiday season. It has been telecast every year since 1964, making it the longest running Christmas TV special, and one of only four 1960s Christmas specials still being telecast - the others being A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman."

Christmas 1968 - Color Wheel

The following is from Wikipedia:

"An aluminum Christmas tree is a type of artificial Christmas tree that was popular in the United States from 1958 until about the mid-1960s. As its name suggests, the tree is made of aluminum, featuring foil needles and illumination from below via a rotating color wheel."

"Aluminum Christmas trees were first manufactured sometime around 1955, remained popular into the 1960s, and were manufactured into the 1970s."

"During the 1960s, the aluminum Christmas tree enjoyed its most popular period of usage. As the mid-1960s passed, the aluminum Christmas tree began to fall out of favor, with many thrown away or relegated to basements and attics. The airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965 has been credited with ending the era of the aluminum tree, and by 1967 their time had almost completely passed."

"The aluminum Christmas tree was used as a symbol of the over-commercialization of Christmas in the 1965 Peanuts holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. The program is considered a classic amongst Christmas specials, and its mention of the aluminum tree solidified the tree's legendary status while satirizing it as well. Peanuts character 'Lucy' implored Charlie Brown to get a 'big, shiny aluminum tree...maybe painted pink.' Charlie lamented the commercialization of the true meaning of Christmas, ignored his friends' request, and purchased a small, scrawny natural tree instead."

In the bottom photo I'm standing in front and my cousins Debby, Diane and Danny are standing behind me. Behind all of us is an aluminum tree. The color wheel is at the bottom right.

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Television Special

A Charlie Brown Christmas is, along with The Grinch, my most favorite Christmas television special. Shown every December, I've watched it for a number of years. In fact, it was first broadcast in 1965 which was the year before I was born. My brothers, Sam, Pete, and I, watched it just about every holiday season. I think our favorite line is when Linus asks Lucy to "name five good reasons" for something or other and Lucy counts back from five on her fingers and is left with just a fist in Linus's face. He responds by saying "Those are good reasons!"

I probably fell out of watching it in the middle to late 80's but picked up the video cassette in the early 90's. I now have it on DVD and Dale and I have watched it every year since then. Great fun and wonderful memories.