Linus Fills the Air With Christmas Cheer

In 2011, Hallmark introduced one of the most charming and ingenious sets of Christmas decorations I have ever encountered. Entitled the Wireless Peanuts Band, this merry group consisted of four beloved characters, each of which played the primary melody on two songs and backup on the rest. As long as they were within close range of each other, the figures interacted with each other without the aid of cords or any other connecting device. We had so much fun with the quartet that we decided to leave them up all year.

We were delighted, then, to discover that a fifth member had been added to the set we’d considered complete. As soon as Mom and I spied Linus, we snatched him up, and he now sits happily on the piano with the rest. Like them, he wears a red Santa hat with white trim. His shoes are brown, while his pants and scarf are red and his pants are green. In his hand, he clutches a trumpet, and unlike the other two characters playing air-powered instruments, he wears a wide smile.

Linus is made of hard plastic and stands about four inches tall. He sways forward and backward at the point of the bottom of his coat when he feels the spirit in the music he is playing. Like the others, he stands flat on a platform made to look like a wood paneled floor. This platform is about three and a half inches long, three inches wide and just over an inch tall. It is the same size as the others in the series, except that Schroeder’s is slightly longer to accommodate his piano. Near the front is the button that you must push to activate each song.

Because Charlie Brown already plays the saxophone, Linus’s trumpet doesn’t add something dramatically different to the group, but it is still a welcome addition. What’s more, he brings with him two songs of his own: Joy to the World and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I find that Lucy’s accompaniment shines most clearly in the first and Schroeder’s in the second, but the group as a whole sounds nice together.

Encountering Linus in December was a sweet surprise prompting me to wonder whether other characters might turn up in future years. Now that we’ve got Charlie Brown, Schroeder, Snoopy, Lucy and Linus, I could imagine them adding folks like Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Sally and Pigpen. While the sound might become a bit cluttered with so many participants, I certainly would snatch up any others they add to the series. I also find myself hoping they’ll do something like this for other sets of characters such as the Pooh gang. For now, though, I am very happy with the five characters I have, and I look forward to them serenading me throughout the year.

Even Without Sunglasses, Snoopy Makes a Mega-Cool Guitarist

Snoopy has got to be just about the most accomplished fictional dog out there. He’s a flying ace. He writes novels. (Granted, they’re fine fireplace fodder, but how many dogs do you know who can type?) His list of unusual skills goes on and on, so it’s not much of a stretch to imagine him playing a musical instrument. In fact, the Peanuts Wireless Band simply would not feel complete if, say, Linus was there in his place. Snoopy is the life of every party, so of course he has to be on hand to play the guitar.

Snoopy is one of four figures in this 2011 Hallmark set that was released one piece at a time between October and December. Snoopy was the last to arrive, perhaps because he is the most popular and Hallmark figured that if he came out first, people might just buy him and not bother with the others. But even if you love Snoopy twice as much as any other character, you’re missing a whole lot of the fun if you only buy one figure. What’s really great about these is the way that they interact with each other.

Press a button on one of them, and after a short time of solo playing, the other figures join in the music, providing harmonies. Among the four figures, there are eight songs, so Snoopy plays back-up guitar for six but takes the lead for two. Of course, a flip of the switch on the bottom of the figure can turn it off, so if you’d rather just hear Snoopy by himself, you can do that. You can also turn off one or two of the other figures to provide a different sound. It’s fun to experiment with different sound patterns; another interesting variable is location, as putting them all in the same place provides a different effect than scattering them around the room.

Snoopy stands on a dark brown platform with a light brown top that resembles a wooden floor. This platform is about three inches wide, three and a half inches long and an inch high. On the platform is a red speaker, and on top of this is Snoopy, who’s rockin’ out - and back and forth - with a green electric guitar in his paws. He also wears a red coat with a matching Santa hat and a green scarf. Like Schroeder, Snoopy is smiling. He doesn’t seem to be stressed out in the least by the task before him. It seems he should be wearing sunglasses; his Joe Cool persona would mesh nicely with this confident musician. But shades or not, he’s looking sharp.

Snoopy’s two songs are Jolly Old St. Nicholas and Silent Night, one of only two religious songs in the repertoire. None of the other characters particularly stands out to me in relation to Snoopy; they all seem to respond to him equally well. This fellow gave me a problem when I first got him; he was a little bit too independent to make a successful band member. When Charlie Brown or Lucy began to play, it was anyone’s guess whether he would join in, and he flat-out refused to accompany Schroeder. A few times, halfway into a performance by the trio, he would launch into a completely different song. Cacophony! But we went back to Hallmark and switched him, and the new and improved Snoopy is a much better team player.

I got Snoopy for $14.95, the same price as the other figures, though technically they were priced at $29.95, and the reduced price was a consequence of buying something else at the same time. If you’re lucky enough to find any at a local Hallmark store, you might even find them for less than that, but they’re also going for considerably more online. Each comes with three AAA batteries, and while you’ll have to replace them eventually, they lasted a season in my house with no problems. I’m sure these figures will make sweet music together for years to come, so it is only right that Snoopy should be a part of a new Christmastime staple.

A More Cooperative Lucy Than Usual Shows Off Her Artistic Side

In countless Peanuts strips, we see Lucy intently watching Schroeder as he plays the piano. While his musical ability seems to impress her, it annoys her that he pours all of his passion into his instrument and none into her, while he is just irritated by her constant interruptions. Despite the intensity of Lucy’s crush, there never seemed to be much of a spark there. But the 2011 Wireless Peanuts Band, a four-piece set released by Hallmark in the lead-up to Christmas, puts them on more even footing, and I daresay those two make beautiful music together. Maybe this seemingly mellower Lucy has cause for an optimistic outlook in her long-unrequited affections.

The band also includes Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and ideally, when you press the button on the front of the brown plastic platform on which Lucy stands, the other three will join in her song. However, because of their musical history, Schroeder is the band member whose interaction with Lucy interests me most, and of all the instruments in the band, I think his piano and her flute make the most dynamic pair. If I isolate them, turning off certain band members in order to create the impression of duets, Saxophonist Charlie Brown and flutist Lucy almost cancel each other out. Guitarist Snoopy is more defined, but it really is the flute and the piano that stand out most to me in relation to each other.

Lucy, about four inches tall, stands on a solid rectangular platform that’s about an inch high, three inches across and three and a half inches long. It’s dark brown on the bottom with a lighter brown flat top given the look of a wooden floor. She wears saddle shoes, green pants and scarf, a red coat and a traditional red Santa hat with white trim and a white ball at the tip. The expression on her face is one of intense concentration, as evidenced by the lines on either side of her eyes. Her black hair is clearly visible under her hat, and her silver flute is raised to her lips.

Each member of the band plays two different Christmas songs, so Lucy provides harmonies on six of them. Her starring role comes in O Christmas Tree and Up on the Housetop. Press the button on her platform, and one of those two songs will play. After the first phrase, whatever other band members are activated will automatically join in. It’s a pretty cool phenomenon, whether you have them situated next to each other on the piano, as I do right now, or scattered around the living room, as I did a few weeks ago. To add to the enjoyment, in addition to the music, each figure moves as well. Lucy swivels back and forth, a nice complement to the twirling that the much tinier version of her does in the 2011 Christmastime Is Here! ornament.

Lucy, like the others in this series, is one of those seasonal promotional figures that is $29.95 at regular price but $14.95 with another purchase. This is a bit silly, since I can’t imagine why anyone would pay full price, especially since “another purchase” can be something as simple as a birthday card. In any case, though, to get all four I had to cough up $60 over the course of four trips, though perhaps if you manage to find a Hallmark that still carries them now, you will find them cheaper as they clear out the Christmas clutter. When I think about the price tag on this series, I feel a tad extravagant buying it, but we’ve had so much fun with this quartet over the past couple months that I don’t care. These figures are just extremely fun, and they’re well-crafted. The three AAA batteries each one came with are still going strong, and I foresee them bringing Christmas cheer for many Decembers to come. Who knew that a lass as abrasive as Lucy could be so sweetly harmonious?

Super-Cool Saxophonist Charlie Brown Plays a Sweet Serenade

Poor Charlie Brown is the perpetual underdog. His beagle may be Joe Cool, but “cool” is not a word I would usually associate with the round-headed kid in the jaggedy-striped shirt. However, in this year’s Wireless Peanuts Band from Hallmark, he’s lookin’ super-smooth as he cradles his saxophone.

Like the other three figures in this series, Charlie Brown is sturdy plastic, and he stands atop a brown base with a wooden floor pattern on the top. That base is just over an inch high, just under three inches wide and about three and a half inches long. The contrast of the darker brown with the light brown on top adds to the attractiveness of the figure.

Charlie Brown wears brown shoes, but everything else about him is vibrant and Christmassy. His pants and scarf are green, while his coat and Santa hat are red. Against all that bright color, Charlie Brown’s skin looks paler than usual. On his face, two tiny black eyes gaze out, one on either side of his bulbous nose, while the black mouthpiece of his golden saxophone is inside his mouth.

Press the small brown button near the front of the platform, and you will be able to hear Charlie Brown play The 12 Days of Christmas, along with It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, one of only two religious songs the band plays. He bobs forward and backward as he plays, giving the impression that he is putting all of his soul into this performance. If you press the button again mid-song, the music will stop; press it once more, and he will begin to play the alternate tune.

Of course, what makes these decorations so very fun is the fact that they communicate with each other. Charlie Brown can play by himself even if you have all four figures; all you need to do is turn off the power on the other three. You can also turn off the power on one or two of them and experiment to see which accompaniment sounds best with him. I would say the player who stands out least when Charlie Brown is in the spotlight is Lucy, whose flute is higher in pitch but somewhat similar in tone to the saxophone.

If another character is playing, Charlie Brown will jump right in after a few seconds, provided he is on. When we first brought Lucy home, we took her out of the bag and pressed the button. Charlie Brown was in the kitchen, near my brother, and he started playing out of the blue. As he had never seen the interactive quality of these figures before, that startled him. It’s a nifty way to be taken by surprise.

Charlie Brown was the second of the figures that Hallmark released. Like the others, he costs $29.95 if you buy him and nothing else, but I don’t know why anyone would do that. He’s $14.95 with another purchase, and that purchase can be something as inexpensive as a greeting card. He comes with three AAA batteries loaded into the bottom of his base, and unless he’s in display mode, which is activated by holding the play button down for several seconds, he shouldn’t need to have his batteries replaced before the season is over.

Whether Charlie Brown is the lead instrumentalist or the beguiling back-up, he is an undeniably awesome part of this quartet, which is one of the cleverest promotions I’ve ever seen from Hallmark. I always thought Charlie Brown was a jolly good fellow, and it’s great to see him here as a nice guy who doesn’t finish last – except when it comes to providing that long, last note that lingers in the ears when the song concludes.

Schroeder's Piano Playing Helps You Deck Those Halls and Jingle Those Bells

If there is one set of characters I identify most readily with Hallmark, it’s the Peanuts gang. Every year, Hallmark releases all sorts of cute Peanuts figures – plush, ceramic, plastic, you name it. It happens throughout the year, but it’s always most pronounced at Christmastime. This year was no exception, and it brought a charming quartet I found it impossible to resist.

The Wireless Peanuts Band consists of four Peanuts characters, each resting on a brown plastic platform, the top of which resembles a wooden floor. The figures were released gradually, the first in October, the last in December, encouraging multiple visits to collect them all. Each is priced at $29.95, but that cost is cut in half with the purchase of another item. I can’t imagine that anybody would buy one for regular price; even a single greeting card is sufficient to bump the price down to $14.95.

The first figure in the series was Schroeder. His base is three inches wide and four inches long, making him take up more space than any of the others. That’s because he’s seated at his baby grand piano, and the elegant instrument is rather large. Like the rest of the figures, he is dressed in red and green. Specifically, he has a green sweater, while his pants and scarf are red. He also wears a traditional red and white Santa hat. The only part of his attire that is not particularly festive is his footwear, which is brown.

Schroeder is seated with his pudgy hands poised over the keyboard. A shock of yellow hair pokes out from under the white brim of his hat, and he wears a big smile. He doesn’t even seem to mind that he is performing in the same band as his abrasive admirer Lucy. In fact, they sound smashing together as a duo. With him on the piano and her on the flute, it’s a nice blend of earthy and celestial sounds.

It’s the interactive nature of these figures that makes them so fun. Play one, and everyone else joins in – unless you’d rather they didn’t. Hence, Schroeder can play alone or with one, two or three bandmates. If you don’t want to hear a particular character, just flip that switch on the bottom to OFF. It’s fun to experiment with different sound combinations and move the figures around to determine what placement will produce the most pleasing effect.

Schroeder plays jazzy versions of Deck the Halls and Jingle Bells. Naturally, these are fairly short, basically combining the beginning and end of the verse or chorus. He slows the tempo down a bit to allow his fingers the opportunity to roam freely. Of course, they’re not actually touching the keys, but they hover so close to them as he rocks back and forth that it’s easy to maintain the illusion.

To activate this, simply press the brown button near the front of the platform. Once the song is finished, press the button again to hear the other one. If you only want to hear the other song and are impatient, press the button as soon as the song starts. This will stop the song. If you press it again, it will start over with the other song.

Meanwhile, if Schroeder is on but is not the primary musician, he will chime in with his piano accompaniment after a few seconds. For instance, after Lucy plays the opening phrase of Up on the Housetop, Schroeder jumps right in and tickles those plastic ivories, making it sound considerably livelier than it would if Lucy were playing alone. Among the four musicians, there are eight songs, and Schroeder plays back-up on six of them.

These are much heavier than ornaments and are best suited to sitting on a shelf side by side, though if you place them in different corners of the room, they will most likely still work together. Mine have worked at distances exceeding 20 feet. Each comes equipped with three AAA batteries; if you need to replace them, you can do so via the bottom of the platform.

While Schroeder isn’t quite as integral a character as his bandmates Lucy, Snoopy and Charlie Brown, he is the first character I associate with music, so it makes perfect sense to feature him. Right now, I have this little pianist sitting on my piano, leading his friends in a celebration of Christmas cheer. “Oh, what fun” indeed!

The Peanuts Gang Has a Snow Day in the Christmastime Is Here! Ornament

A Charlie Brown Christmas, the first of many Peanuts specials, includes plenty of iconic moments: the kids dancing as Schroeder debuts Linus and Lucy, Linus explaining what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown bemoaning the apparent demise of his bedraggled Christmas tree. Before any of that comes along, however, we have the blissful scene of the children basking in the pristine beauty of a winter wonderland to the tune of the wistful Christmastime Is Here.

That scene is the subject of the 2011 Hallmark ornament of the same name. One of this year's most expensive ornaments at $35, it is also one of the largest and most complex. On a circular sky blue base about 1.75 inches high and 3.75 inches in diameter, a scene of glittery enchantment unfolds. "Christmastime is here!" declare the words on the base, making it obvious which way the ornament should be turned, though the placement of the landmarks suggests it as well.

In the back, we have Snoopy's red doghouse, its roof covered in snow, toward the right and a snowman in a green scarf toward the left. Snow-covered trees rest to both the left and right near the front, and an especially tall one stands directly in the middle with the loop for the ornament hook at the top, looking almost like a traditional tree-topping star. The snow is white and thick, with a generous sprinkling of sparkles.

Five characters appear on this ornament, none of them standing much more than an inch in height. On a round track circling the central tree, we have Charlie brown in his brown cap, red coat and black pants stretched out on a wooden toboggan. In front of him is Linus in a green cap and black sweater, happily seated inside a cardboard box, and leading the procession - at least, depending how you look at it - is Snoopy cruising along in his red supper dish, with Woodstock perched on the fuzzy brim of his Santa hat. Finally, Lucy, clad in a pale blue dress and matching cap, has a tiny pond to herself, and she looks uncommonly graceful as she stands poised with one white skate on the ice and another in the air.

Each of the characters is smiling, though Snoopy and Woodstock's cheerful expressions are difficult to decipher under their large snouts. Clearly, though, this is a very placid scene, and it becomes even more charming when you pull the string dangling from the bottom of the base with a small plastic snowflake at the end. At this point, Lucy twirls in place, while the four characters surrounding her circle her as the first verse of Christmastime Is Here plays. The string lasts longer than the song does, so after the children's voices fade, you will most likely still see some movement before it winds down entirely.

Each of the figures is intricately detailed, making this ornament gorgeous to look at but not one that is ideal for tree-hanging. The ornament on the whole is heavy and bulky, likely to weigh down a typical evergreen branch, while the tiny figures might get dwarfed or damaged as they hang on the tree. This battery-operated ornament created by Hallmark artist Tracy Larsen seems much more suited to shelf-sitting; while you will have to pick it up in order to pull the string and get the magic going, it works fine if you immediately set it down on the shelf again afterward.

Every year, Hallmark releases oodles of ornaments that I would readily snatch up if I had an inexhaustible supply of money and tree space. The Peanuts ones are harder for me to resist than most, and Christmastime Is Here! is one of the most enchanting of those ornaments yet.

Embrace Contentment With the 2011 Happiness Is... Ornament

Happiness Is a Warm Puppy is one of the most iconic books Charles Schulz ever created. A compact celebration of the many different ways in which people find happiness, it includes a series of “Happiness is…” statements, each accompanied by a drawing of one or more Peanuts characters. This year’s Happiness Is… Hallmark ornament celebrates that book and the general feeling of contentment that goes along with it.

This sturdy ornament features Charlie Brown lounging cozily in a bright blue beanbag, reading the book whose title has been shortened to Happiness Is… On Charlie Brown’s head rests Snoopy, his faithful white beagle with the black spot on his back, and plucky yellow bird Woodstock perches on Snoopy’s head. All three wear wide smiles. They make a lovely little tower, and the beanbag, which is flat on the bottom, gives them a very sturdy base. The bag is two inches long and just under two inches wide, and from its bottom to the top of Woodstock’s head, the ornament stands slightly less than four inches tall.

The colors on this ornament are very vivid. I would describe the blue as cerulean, a cheerful color that is fairly light but very bright. Charlie Brown has flesh-toned arms, hands, legs and face, while his shirt is bright red with a jagged black stripe, his shorts are black and his shoes are brown. Snoopy is blazingly white except for the black spots and the red collar, and Woodstock sports a sunny shade of yellow. Meanwhile, the book in Charlie Brown’s hands has a lavender cover. The pages are white on the edges, but the left page to which the book is open is red, while the right is orange.

“Happiness is getting together with friends,” the page reads, and that seems wonderfully appropriate for this ornament. The unspoken sentiment that goes along with it here would be something along the lines of “Happiness is curling up with a good book.” Because it so effectively conveys the joy of reading, this ornament would make a wonderful shelf sitter in a book nook or on a home library shelf. I’ve decided to keep mine out year-round; after all, there is nothing inherently Christmassy about it.

If you do want to hang this one on your Christmas tree, the ornament hook is at the back of Snoopy’s head, where you barely notice it from the front because Woodstock is standing directly in front of it. There’s a slight tilt to the way this hangs because of the heaviness of the beanbag, but it’s nothing very dramatic. It’s just enough to enhance the illusion of reclining.

While this is well-crafted and appealing from a purely visual point of view, one thing that makes this battery-operated ornament so fun is the button you push to make Charlie Brown talk. Located on the side of the beanbag and colored to blend in with the rest of the material, it runs through a series of statements about what happiness is. There are enough that at least one should apply to whoever happens to be listening, especially since one of the statements is about how different things make different people happy. The list of quotes is as follows.

“Happiness is getting together with friends.”
“Happiness is an A on your spelling test.”
“Happiness is finding someone you like at the front door.”
“Happiness is walking on the grass in your bare feet.”
“Happiness is one thing to one person and another thing to another person.”

I’m not sure who recorded the voice for this, but he sounds Charlie Brownish to me, and he does a nice job with the statements, though his inflection on the third is a little wonky. It’s fun to press the button multiple times and listen to each in turn.

This is an excellent ornament for fans of Charlie Brown and his pals, and it can bring a smile no matter what the season is. If you think happiness is a warm puppy, a beloved book or devoted friends, then you will probably also find that happiness is a 2011 Hallmark ornament featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Woodstock.

This Little Piggy Conquers Fears Through Hospitality in John Pig's Halloween

In the classic Peanuts special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Linus Van Pelt skips trick-or-treating in favor of greeting the Great Pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, and Sally Brown gives it a pass because she wants to hang out with Linus. They’re both bowing out of Halloween fun for the sake of doing something that they feel will be more rewarding. In John Pig’s Halloween, written by Jan L. Waldron and illustrated by David McPhail, the title character does not have other plans. He is simply too frightened to go trick-or-treating.

This tall picture book is written in well-crafted verse. Each page features between two and eight lines following a simple AABB format. The rhythm is consistent if not perfect, and the wording is vivid without being overly complex. There are a few words that may be unfamiliar, but picture books are wonderful places for kids to bolster their vocabulary. One particularly promising verse reads, “One of the pigs wore a huge rubber nose, suspenders with knickers, and blue-checkered hose. A tiny, chic pig donned a towering chapeau, then finished things off with a tangerine bow.”

John appears to live in some sort of boarding house occupied solely by pigs. Based on the fact that they are trick-or-treating, I would presume them to be kids, though if that’s the case, there don’t seem to be any adults in the house. Additionally, John seems to be unusually handy in the kitchen for a youngster. It is not entirely clear what age these characters are supposed to be, but they feel youthful, at any rate.

The other pigs want to include John, but he is just too wimpy. He’s afraid of things that go bump in the night. Nonetheless, when a witch turns up at his house looking for tasty treats, kindness compels John to let her in. Perhaps he initially thinks her only another pig in costume, but it soon becomes apparent that she has magical powers. I’m reminded a bit of Bilbo Baggins, who welcomes Gandalf and extends his typical hospitality only to find his house filled with dwarves. John, instead, plays host to monsters and magical beings of all types. When they first arrive, his anxiety is apparent in his eyes, but as the night wears on, he begins to loosen up. Maybe these monsters aren’t so scary after all!

As I am a jittery sort myself, I can relate to John’s shyness and trepidation. While I have never been afraid to go out trick-or-treating, I understand how someone might be, and his nervousness at having all those odd creatures invade his home is entirely natural. Nonetheless, he not only muddles through, he actually enjoys himself. This, then, is a story about overcoming fear through compassionate impulses. The rhyme adds to the appealing storybook quality, and the illustrations are wonderful. I’ve enjoyed McPhail’s work since I was a toddler, and this 1998 book shows the same detail and artistry that I came to expect through books like Those Terrible Toy-Breakers.

This is the cutest Halloween picture book I have read in some time. Along with the quality illustrations and verse, it includes a worthwhile message about facing your fears, which security blanket-toting Linus would most likely appreciate. John Pig’s Halloween really is an occasion worth celebrating.

Ingest the Wisdom of Linus With Help Stamp Out Things That Need Stamping Out

Like most people I know, I consider Renaissance Beagle Snoopy my favorite character in Charles Schulz’s classic comic strip Peanuts. He’s so dynamic and entertaining, and I can certainly relate to his frustrations with rejection letters. When it comes to the humans, however, I tend to gravitate less toward the round-headed kid, despite my empathy for the slings and arrows that outrageous fortune sends Charlie Brown’s way, than his younger friend with the striped shirt. Linus Van Pelt is an anxious lad who is prone to philosophizing. Indeed, the two qualities often go together because thinking too much has a tendency to make one jittery. Just take a look at LOST’s frazzled physicist Faraday. Or me.

Given my love of Linus, I was tickled when, after a recent visit with my grandma, my dad brought home a tiny book that his brother had given him years ago. Entitled Help Stamp Out Things That Need Stamping Out (And Other Philosophical Gems of Linus), the green hardcover gift book published by Hallmark in 1969 is slim and pocket-sized. Within it are 11 “chapters,” each four pages long and each headed by a title beginning with the word “on.” For instance, the title, which goes with the cover image of Linus holding a picket sign featuring these words, is from “On Being Specific” and is Linus’s response to Lucy’s complaint that his sign slogan, “Help Stamp Out Things,” is too vague.

Each title rests in a box with a thin red border at the top of the first panel in the cartoon. Each page is a panel unto itself, so you’re really just getting 11 individual cartoons. The book is also rather lacking in the eye-catching department, with black and red the only colors aside from the green of the cover. Red only appears in the characters’ clothes, so at least we don’t have red grass making everything look arid, but Charlie Brown’s signature yellow shirt looks a little funny in cinnamon. Additionally, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Violet are the only characters who appear in the book with Linus, so there’s not a whole lot of variety.

Still, you can certainly get an idea of these three characters’ personalities, particularly the forceful Lucy, who displays openly antagonistic behavior to Linus in four of the sections. Most of all, you get a good sense of Linus, who is jumpy at some times, wise beyond his years at others and always intent and curious about the world around him. He can be a bit of a smart-aleck, which isn’t such a good idea when his sister is such a hot-head, but his superior intelligence is due not only to his immersion in books but to his willingness to experiment. Does a smile really make a good umbrella? What is the ideal temperature to bring out the optimum flavor in a thumb?

Many of the observations that form the punch line of each section are quite quotable. I think my favorite is, “I don’t like to do anything that interferes with my not doing anything!” Who hasn’t had such a thought when an unwanted chore interferes with a lazy afternoon? And everyone would do well to remember Linus’s disgruntled resolution, “I’ve got to stop this business of talking without thinking.” With everyday topics ranging from Mixing Categories and Interruptions to Home Remedies and Good Judgment, the book is bound to resonate with most readers at least once. For me, it’s frequent. This little collection of wit and wisdom is only one of a dozen released by Hallmark in the 1960s. I hope I come across more of them; this may not be a very extensive collection, but every cartoon is right on target.

Two-By-Fours: A Dull Read But an Interesting Showcase for Schulz

When I go to the annual week-long book fair sponsored by my local library system, I always expect a few unusual books to catch my eye. A couple of years ago, my friend Libbie discovered one for me: a slim Christian parenting guide from 1965 entitled Two-By-Fours. What makes this hardcover, slightly larger than the typical gift book, so interesting is that one of the authors is Charles Schulz. The front cover features a pair of children who, while not actual characters from the Peanuts comic strip, would fit right in as neighborhood children. With just a tiny glance, any Schulz fan will be able to recognize his handiwork.

The book, or at least my edition of it, does not include any authorial notes, so I can’t say for sure, but the impression that I get is that although Schulz is listed first, and in much larger print, the book’s actual writing was done by Kenneth F. Hall, while Schulz furnishes the full-page illustrations. Each one is a single-panel cartoon set against a background of white, red, purple, red and white or purple and white. Black, white, purple and red are the only colors in the book, giving it a fairly bland look, which is rather appropriate since it’s kind of a bland book.

The main text is divided into four sections, each of which deals with a different aspect of life for a “two-by-four,” which is Hall’s way of describing children between the ages of two and four. The first deals with a child’s gradual awareness of his or her identity, while the second discusses the role of a two-by-four in the family at large. The third delves into interacting with other children and adults outside the home, and the fourth focuses specifically on the church setting.

The book contains some decent insights into what life is like for a child of this age, including the struggle of being bullied by older siblings and feeling jealous of younger siblings, the difficulty a child has in understanding big concepts like time and space, and the ways in which clear instructions and discipline help children to understand the adult world better. While only the fourth chapter focuses on how a child relates to the church, the previous three chapters foreshadow this with comments about how a parent should set a foundation upon which the church can build.

The concepts are generally fine, if a bit on the idealized side. Hall tends to write in broad generalities like, “The kids around the neighborhood don’t begin to compare with his own kin. His family is the center of his universe.” While he touches briefly on the possibility of episodes of disharmony in the home, he seems to assume that the home environment of anyone reading is a pleasant one, that all disciplinary measures are appropriate, that siblings, even if they act out occasionally, truly and deeply love each other. It comes across as a bit naïve, as does the assertion that children this age naturally find churches to be fascinating and welcoming places.

What’s more, the writing is, for the most part, dull and dry, and the format of the book does not particularly work in its favor as most pages do not end with the end of a sentence. Thus, you have a page of text followed by two full-page cartoons, and by the time you get to the next page you’ve lost your place. When I read this, I have to keep reminding myself to stop before the last sentence on the page or else to keep reading and then backtrack. It doesn’t really matter because most of the cartoons, while relating to the chapter at large, don’t apply specifically to a point in the text.

The main reason, then, to get this book is for Schulz’s cartoons, which I’m sure is what the publisher was banking on with the prominence of Schulz and his work on the cover. Out of 37 pages, 23 are full-page cartoons, while four pages feature smaller illustrations alongside the text. The children he draws are cute and expressive, meant to look just slightly younger than most of the Peanuts gang. It’s fun to look at the pictures and match the kids up with established characters from the strip and see whether the dialogue caption seems like something that character might actually say.

Most of the cartoons reflect a certain degree of confusion that these youngsters feel with the world around them and with the church and its doctrines. The philosophical queries some of the children pose make me think of Linus Van Pelt; it’s easy to imagine him having these same sorts of thoughts, particularly at a slightly younger age. I also thought of Sally Brown during some of the whinier panels in which children bemoan the unfairness of their lot in life.

“How could a loving God ever have made big brothers?” one exasperated tyke grumbles as a much older boy saunters by. Another works with a seatmate to stack up hymnals so that he can use them as a booster seat on the pew in order to enable him to see the pastor as he preaches. Some of the children are anxious, some are distraught and some are content enough to look as though they belong in the Schulz classic Happiness Is a Warm Puppy. This is especially true of the final panel in which a boy happily tucked into bed proclaims that “going to church is something like having a night-light.”

As a toddler instruction manual for parents who want to raise their children in a Christian environment, I don’t think this quite hits the mark. However, as a pithy showcase of Schulz’s mid-60s work, full of kids who look like they belong in Peanuts but don’t quite, Two-By-Fours is a fascinating find.

Here Comes Snoopy, and Here Comes Fun

While I am fond of all the characters who populate Peanuts, the classic comic strip created by Charles Schulz, my favorite would have to be Snoopy, that cheerful, imaginative beagle with dreams of novelist glory that are frequently thwarted by unfeeling editors. Even though Snoopy didn’t become a writer until later in the series, it was a no-brainer for me to scoop up the 1950s-era collection Here Comes Snoopy when I spotted it at our local city-wide book sale. Like Here Comes Charlie Brown!, this volume is just over a hundred pages long and is drawn from a larger collection, this one called Snoopy Vol. 1. Unlike that book, it is unified by the fact that the title character appears in every single strip.

There’s actually quite a lot of overlap between the two books, with a majority of the Snoopy strips from that book showing up in this one. This is very early Snoopy, so he looks a bit more like a regular dog and a bit less than the very distinct canine found in so many Christmas ornaments, plush toys and Minnesota public art statues. Still, we definitely get the sense that Snoopy is not quite an ordinary dog. There’s something a little unusual about him, whether he’s spending his days imitating Charlie Brown and his friends or sobbing into Schroeder’s shoulder after a particularly moving piano performance.

While Here Comes Charlie Brown! is pretty much just a hodgepodge of early strips, Here Comes Snoopy most definitely belongs to the beagle. Mostly, we see him either on his own or interacting with Charlie Brown, Linus or Lucy. Other characters do make the occasional appearance; Schroeder appears in several strips, and we see Violet and Patty, though neither of them says much. Each strip contains four panels, though some are square, some are ovals and some have no outline at all.

Charlie Brown is well aware that his dog is an oddball, and sometimes that seems to frustrate him. More than once, we see him offering to teach Snoopy a simple skill, only to have him demonstrate that he is far too advanced for that sort of lesson. It annoys him that Snoopy is such a know-it-all. He also is irritated by Snoopy’s constant shedding. Nonetheless, he loves showing his dog off to everybody, and it’s apparent that Snoopy brings him just as much happiness as he does frustration.

While Linus is generally a gentle, philosophical soul, he and Snoopy have always had a somewhat antagonistic relationship because of Snoopy’s tendency to steal his security blanket. Hence, most of the encounters we see between the two are rather tense. Sometimes we see Snoopy clutching his blanket in his teeth and zooming off while Linus holds on for dear life. At other times, Snoopy tries to sneak up on Linus and give him a good scare, but Linus always seems to be one step ahead of him and retaliates with something even more ferocious that sends Snoopy streaking off in terror.

Lucy doesn’t have as much to do with Snoopy as her brother does, but generally their meetings are more cordial. While Snoopy enjoys poking fun at her, he also appreciates the affection she lavishes on him, even though he thinks a tasty treat would be a more exciting gesture than a pat on the head. Lucy, like Patty and Violet, generally approves of Snoopy, and he sometimes brings out her softer side, though she’s not afraid to confront him when she thinks he is being ridiculous.

It’s a little strange to have an entire book full of Snoopy cartoons and not see Woodstock once, but Snoopy’s feathered pal didn’t join the strip until 1967 (and didn’t get a name until 1970). Snoopy is a solitary creature here. Not only do we not see Woodstock, we don’t see his doghouse either, which makes him feel much less like the king of his domain. He’s more of a perpetual tagalong. Some days, he seems to revel in his status, but at other times, he wishes that he were human and even goes so far as to say that he would avoid dogs if he hadn’t been born one, since he finds canines fundamentally distasteful. His feelings seem to fluctuate.

Mostly, though, he appears pretty happy with his lot. He has half a dozen ready playmates, a steady supply of food and the freedom to indulge his imaginative whims. In one of the strips, Charlie Brown and Shermy walk up to Snoopy and, finding him looking despondent under a thick snowfall, tell him, “Be of good cheer.” This amuses me because my brother and I once had a conversation about the Christmas song It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year and how neither of us could ever remember being told, “Be of good cheer.” But Snoopy receives this very instruction. It occurs within the first few pages of the book, so if you’re reading it, you might consider it an instruction to the reader as well, but hardly a necessary one. Cheer can hardly be avoided when Snoopy is coming your way.

Enjoy Some Old-Fashioned Peanuts Fun with Charles Schulz's Here Comes Charlie Brown!

I’ve always loved the Peanuts characters created by Charles Schulz, and I come by that affection honestly. Charlie Brown and the gang have been popular in my family for decades, as evidenced by the collection of comic strips that my grandma gave me this week after looking through some of her old books. Here Comes Charlie Brown! was originally published in 1955. This edition dates back to 1966, but that’s still 45 years of Peanuts fandom, and I bet that the older generation of McCartys were Schulz fans long before that. Who could blame them?

This simple book is a small paperback with a bright orange cover showing a despondent Charlie Brown with a baseball cap on his head and a bat slung over his shoulder, a mitt dangling from the end. Presumably he has just lost or forfeited a game; his baseball managing woes come up frequently in this collection of about 120 black-and-white four-panel strips. This book is actually basically an abridged version of Good Ol’ Charlie Brown Vol. II, so it would probably make more sense to get that book, but since this one fell into my lap, this is what I’m reviewing.

Because my edition was published more than a decade after the first, the back cover is something of an oddity. For one thing, along with the bright orange of the front, it has a large block of green with a thin white line between the two portions of the page, reminding me of the Irish flag. For another, the language is very dated, talking about how you want to get in with “the in group,” and this is it. “Guaranteed to help you kick the blues without the aid of headshrinkers or happy pills,” the blurb promises.

But what’s most notable about the back cover is that the group includes two characters who appear nowhere within its pages since at the time of publication, they had not yet been created. These anachronistic kids are Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally, introduced in 1959, and naturally curly-haired Frieda, who didn’t show up until 1961. Don’t expect to find Snoopy’s feathered friend Woodstock, bespectacled Marcie or tomboyish Peppermint Patty in this book either. However, you will find blond-haired Patty, her best friend, dark-haired Violet, and quiet Shermy, all of whom become much less prominent in later years. The book also features Pig-Pen, who remains a fairly major character but is mostly a one-note guy, with his strips generally involving his inability to stay clean.

The characters in this book look pretty close to their final form, but they’re not quite there yet. Schulz still had a bit of perfecting to do before they reached their final iconic looks. Linus and Schroeder probably are closest to their final versions at this point. That seems fitting for Linus, since he spends so much of the book preoccupied with getting older. He takes pride in being able to tie his shoes and button his shirt, and he dreams of the freedom he will find when he finally turns six. He’s beginning to have his doubts about the existence of Santa Claus and to suspect that not everything his older sister Lucy tells him is true. However, he remains stubbornly youthful in one respect: his refusal to give up his beloved security blanket. Moreover, his innocent inexperience is apparent when he tells Lucy that he can’t imagine living to the ripe old age of 30.

Schroeder‘s preoccupations in this book are pretty typical. He spends most of his time playing the piano, showing off musical knowledge of composers such as Bach, Brahms and Chopin. Of course, he saves his most ardent admiration for Beethoven, and his hero worship not only annoys Lucy, who has raging crush on him, but Charlie Brown, who spends most of the book aggravated by one thing or another. Schroeder also plays some baseball here, or at least shows up to play, but the team is such a disaster that not much ever happens on that front, and soon he’s back to tickling the ivories and daydreaming about his favorite composer. My favorite Schroeder moment in this book comes when Charlie Brown reads a passage describing a dark period of Beethoven’s life, and Schroeder wonders, bewildered, “How could anyone be Beethoven and not be happy?”

Lucy isn’t very happy in this book, and it’s not just because Schroeder loves Beethoven more than he even tolerates her, though that doesn’t help. “Never fall in love with a musician,” she sagely advises. But she has bigger problems to worry about. One day, she takes a notion into her head that the world is literally getting smaller, and it’s because people are wearing down the ground by walking on it. She begins a one-girl campaign to stop people from shrinking the planet before it’s too late. While she eventually wearies of this activism, she spends a lot of time in the book spouting off bizarre “facts” that she merely made up, much to Charlie Brown’s consternation.

Despite his stint as spelling champ in A Boy Called Charlie Brown, I never thought of Charlie Brown as being all that studious, but that is the way he comes across here. At least, he knows enough to be very agitated with Lucy’s dissemination of false information, especially the erroneous tour of local trees that she gives Linus. He seems determined to be well-informed himself; throughout much of the book, we can see him reading, always soaking up historical and scientific tidbits to pass along to others. He reminds me of my dad, who is always running to the Internet to find some background information on various topics that we’ve been discussing. Unfortunately, no amount of written knowledge seems sufficient to improve Charlie Brown’s luck in baseball or to convince the rather mean-spirited girls who surround him that he deserves to be treated with anything other than scorn. It’s little wonder he empathizes with the overlooked sparrows, building a birdhouse exclusively for them. As he explains in a wonderfully quintessential Charlie Brown moment, “I always stick up for the underbird!”

Then, of course, we have Snoopy. While he has not yet begun to let his imagination run truly wild – he does not have a typewriter, for instance, and he doesn’t fantasize about gunning down the Red Baron – he’s well on his way at this point. He spends a good portion of this book working on his impressions, imitating animals, historical figures and neighborhood kids. This last is his favorite, though Charlie Brown warns him that he’s headed for trouble if they find out he’s doing it. Snoopy is generally a happy dog, as evidenced by the series of strips in which Lucy reprimands him for his exuberant dancing, but there are a few things that bother him. Here, his biggest vexation is weeds, and the yard full of tall, unmown vegetation sends him into a constant state of panic when he finds himself within its confines.

This is a simple collection in which the story arcs never last more than a few panels and never become very complex. They do reveal character, though, so if you love Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder and Snoopy, you should be very pleased indeed at the words Here Comes Charlie Brown!

Sherlock Snoopy and Watson Woodstock Are Ready to Solve a Mystery

I’m a movie buff, and as a result, the December crop of movies has me a bit stressed out. How, oh how, am I going to make it to the theater for The Princess and the Frog, The Lovely Bones, Avatar and Sherlock Holmes? I may have to wait for Netflix, but at least with the last one, I have Snoopy to help tide me over. That’s because several years ago, while browsing around in a local thrift shop, we found The Detective, the third ornament in the Spotlight on Snoopy series. It’s always a bit of a chore to locate this ornament come Christmastime, since it came packaged in the box of an entirely different ornament, something to do with giving a gold star to a worthy teacher. But that makes its arrival all the more welcome once we do find it.

Like the other Spotlight on Snoopy ornaments, this Snoopy is fairly small at just over two inches high. From the back of his head to the front of his nose, there is about an inch and a quarter, and that is the thickest point of the ornament. Snoopy stands flat on his two white feet, and Woodstock, on his tiny yellow feet, stands flat as well. Leaning up against Snoopy, Woodstock is dressed in drab black. He seems to be holding a legal pad, perusing notes pertaining to the case at hand. On his head is a jaunty derby.

Snoopy, meanwhile, is garbed all in red augmented with green and yellow stripes that intersect and go both horizontally and vertically. From the colors to his oddly-shaped hat to the magnifying glass he holds in the hand that stretches out from underneath his cloak, it’s clear that Snoopy is emulating Sherlock Holmes, making Woodstock Watson. The two are a perfect pair. Clearly visible is Snoopy’s entire head, with his squinty eyes, round nose and black ears; the rest of him, aside from the hand and two feet, is obscured by the clothing.

I don’t recall seeing Snoopy play Sherlock at any point in the comic strip, but given the beagle’s fondness for literature, it’s no surprise to see him portray such an iconic fictional figure, and bringing Woodstock along for the ride is simply the friendly thing to do. Besides, where would Sherlock be without his trusty assistant? This is a very cute little ornament that could easily stay out all year long, though we always put it away for the year. It could rest on a shelf or piano with no trouble, but we always hang this one on the tree; the hook goes atop his hat, and he dangles quite nicely from the branch at hand.

We’re big Snoopy fans around here, so it’s something of a surprise to me that we don’t have more of the ornaments in this series, but I’m glad we picked this one up, even if he did come in the wrong box. After all, a little bit of mystery is particularly fitting for this super sleuth and his dedicated assistant.

Hallmark's Spaceman Snoopy Celebrates the Beagle's Relationship With NASA

NASA has been a passion of my dad’s all his life, and everybody in my family loves Snoopy, so when I spotted 2007’s Spaceman Snoopy ornament, the tenth in Hallmark’s Spotlight on Snoopy series, I couldn’t resist buying it for him. Shortly thereafter, Hallmark released a plush Snoopy in astronaut gear, which I also bought for Dad. I’ve gotten him a couple of Flying Ace figures over the years, and it seemed to me a natural progression from fighter pilot to astronaut.

Within the strip itself, there have been a few references to space exploration in association with Snoopy, and outside of the strip, he has a long history with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Though the ornament doesn’t specifically indicate this, I’m guessing that it may have been timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Apollo 1, the module that was destroyed in a fire in January of 1967 before it could be launched. Following this disaster, which killed three astronauts, Snoopy became the official mascot of Apollo, with several Astrobeagle tie-in products introduced with his image, which was used to promote aerospace safety and the rebuilding of the program.

A statue of him in astronaut gear stands at the Kennedy Space Center. Snoopy was the nickname of the Apollo 10 lunar module; the command module was nicknamed Charlie Brown. The Silver Snoopy Award is a special commendation given to NASA employees by astronauts; to date, there have been more than 12,000 recipients, all of whom have received a sterling silver pin in Snoopy’s likeness designed by Charles Schulz. Clearly, Snoopy and space go together well.

In this ornament, Snoopy is all dressed up in a NASA spacesuit. The only part of his body that is not obscured by his heavy clothing is his face, which can be seen through the clear space helmet. Though his ears are hidden, his squinty eyes peek out, and his round nose is clearly visible. It’s a detailed, attractive suit, and Snoopy looks very official in it. One gloved hand holds a silver pole, at the top of which is the American flag. He stands just over two inches tall, and the rocky landscape on which he is located is nearly two inches long.

It looks as though Snoopy has made it to Mars, judging by the brownish color of the ground, and sitting calmly in a crater is a friendly-looking Woodstock with green antennae. The two seem perfectly comfortable in one another’s company. The ornament stands flat extremely well, and it would make a perfect addition to the office of a NASA enthusiast year-round. But it also hangs on the tree easily, tilting just a little bit as it dangles.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Snoopy ornament I didn’t like, but considering Snoopy’s importance to the space program, I find this one especially cool. Snoopy has won over fans all around the world; why not expand his reach into outer space as well?

Snoopy Directs the Peanuts Gang in Ringing In Christmas

When I was little, I attended a church with a bell choir. I always loved listening to their anthems, and when we switched churches, I missed those melodious performances. Both of my parents played the bells; I have a particularly vivid recollection of them playing Now the Green Blade Rises. Over the years, my parents have participated in several choirs, and Mom has led the children’s choir on several occasions. So when I saw Ringing In Christmas, a 2007 ornament in which Snoopy directs a bell choir containing Linus, Sally, Peppermint Patty, Charlie Brown and Lucy, it seemed a very fitting gift for Mom.

This keepsake is labeled as a “Christmas ornament,” but I wouldn’t recommend trying to hang it on the tree. There is a swooping hanger apparently available for this purpose, but it’s an extremely heavy ornament, and it really does seem to be built to lie flat. During last year’s Christmas season, we kept it on the piano; I expect that we’ll do the same this year, finding a spot that is out of reach for inquisitive cats but allowing easy enough access so that we can wind up the ornament when we want to, because that’s when the fun really begins.

Ringing In Christmas comes in an attractive cream-colored box, the back of which contains a verse suitable for the occasion: “Early Christmas morning, / You can hear the choir bells ring, / As Snoopy leads the carol / ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.’ / The Peanuts gang has practiced / So their timing is just right / And their bells can tell the story / Of that blessed Christmas night.” Filling the box are two pieces of molded plastic, into which the Peanuts ornament fits.

The ornament is set up like an ornate choir loft. The loft, which stands four and a half inches tall and is nearly three inches deep and wide, is white with gold accents. Behind the bell players is a latticed archway. They stand on a red floor, with Snoopy, Sally and Linus on one level and the other three a step above them. Tiny, smiling Woodstock sits perched in the middle of a wreath that hangs above the rest, and he too carries a bell, though it does not move as the others do when activated.

Snoopy, about half the size of the children he conducts, stands with his back to the audience. Along with everyone else in the group, he wears a thin, painted-on smile. His eyes are small curved lines, while the children have dots for eyes. Each of them faces the congregation holding a golden bell in each hand. The bells match the accents on their green robes; it’s just as well that they aren’t silver, or they might wind up looking like a bunch of shifty Slytherins.

Although the presence of the choir robes means that none of the kids can wear their signature garb, the differences in their faces are distinct enough. Patty is freckly, with a shock of reddish hair. Charlie is essentially bald, with just a little curlicue of hair on his forehead. Lucy’s black hair sits in his typical position, and around her eyes are lines, perhaps from stress. Linus has the same lines, so I suspect that the Van Pelts have been picking on each other a bit. His hair is the usual mess of stringy strands, while Sally’s is thick and yellow, with that goofy hornlike formation and what looks like a bow on the top of her head. The figures are about an inch and a half tall and are firmly attached to the loft floor.

This is a beautiful decoration just to look at, completely stationary. But if you wind the golden key at the back, you will find that the bells in each hand will chime (or, rather, the arms will move in order to create the illusion of bells playing) as Snoopy sways back and forth to conduct. As indicated by the verse, the tune is Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, a tune that played a prominent role in two different Peanuts Christmas specials. The music really does sound like bells ringing, and the effect is lovely. The sound is as high-quality as the visual elements, and there are no batteries required.

Naturally, such an elaborate ornament is a bit on the pricey side. It’ll probably cost you upwards of $40 to get your hands on this one, but if you’re a fan of Peanuts or bells, I heartily recommend it. It’s just as neat as the one ornament I’m keenest to add to my Pooh collection: Pooh Bells, from the previous year, which features a crank that activates the audio-visual spectacle of the characters playing Carol of the Bells. Apparently bells are a particularly useful ingredient in the crafting of an exceptional Christmas ornament. Snoopy seems like such a natural up there, perhaps he should set aside his writing for a while and focus all of his energy on being a choirmaster. There’s so much to love about Ringing In Christmas, I wish they would do an encore!

Literary Ace Snoopy Types Out a Masterpiece With Woodstock in Tow

I love Snoopy in all of his many guises. But best of all is the Literary Ace, sitting atop his doghouse with his typewriter, diligently tapping away on those keys even though he knows full well in the back of his mind that he’ll soon be getting another rejection slip. I own the book Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life, so I have a good idea of just how frequently and thoroughly Snoopy’s work has been rejected. But that doesn’t deter him. He’s industrious as well as creative; one could say that all of his other personas are outgrowths of his writerly ambitions. This beagle’s daydreams are epic, and once in a while he takes the time to actually write them down, though a bit always seems to get lost in the translation.

At my college graduation party, I gave away goodie bags stamped with the image of Snoopy on his typewriter. On my piano, I have a snowglobe with Snoopy hard at work on his next novel. But the beginning of my Snoopy the Writer collection was Hallmark’s Spotlight on Snoopy: Literary Ace ornament, which came out in 2002. Spotlight on Snoopy is a series of ornaments that started in 1998; we only have three, but I’d be tempted to get the rest online sometime. It’s hard to go wrong with Snoopy. But I’m glad to at least have my favorite.

Literary Ace Snoopy comes in a box that is absurdly large in proportion to the ornament itself. While Snoopy doesn’t measure more than two inches in any direction, the box is five inches tall, three and a half inches wide and two and a half inches deep. This leaves room for the large piece of molded plastic in which to place Snoopy when Christmas is over. Still, the size seems slightly misleading, though most Hallmark stores would have had the ornament on display for examination. I usually think of Hallmark boxes as being a deep red color, but Snoopy’s is bright blue, with beige on the front and back. While the front features a picture of the ornament, the back includes a descriptive verse: “Snoopy’s never at a loss / for clever words to write. / His latest novel starts: ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’”

In addition to the ornament, the box contains a “memory card”. This has a picture of the ornament on the front; on the back are “To” and “From” spots, along with several lines under “Holiday Memory 2002”. If the giver were so inclined, he or she could take the card out ahead of time and write a message in this space before returning it to the box. Or the recipient could fill in this portion after Christmas with a memory involving that person from the celebration that just passed or perhaps an explanation of why this ornament was probably chosen for them. There’s not a lot of space, just five lines of an inch and three quarters. But it’s enough room to jot something down, especially for those with small printing or handwriting. If you have a lot of ornaments with memory cards, you might want to put them in a special book or box instead of leaving them with the ornaments; that way, you can peruse them all at the same time.

Snoopy is usually a fairly solitary writer, barring objections from the likes of persnickety Lucy, but in this ornament, he has a friend to supervise his activities. While Snoopy sits with his “hands” poised over the keys, Woodstock perches on his left “foot”. Woodstock is bright yellow and wears a red scarf and green earmuffs. His eyes are tiny flat lines, and he has no mouth. Snoopy is all white, with the exception of his eyes, which, like Woodstock’s, look more like eyebrows; his round nose; and the outer portion of his floppy ears. There’s also a little black spot at the base of his tail, and though it isn’t easily visible when you look at him head-on, he is smiling. He wears a purple sweater, a green scarf and, just to make the ornament extra-Christmassy, a red Santa hat trimmed with white.

The typewriter is black with black keys that don’t look as though they actually have numbers and letters on them, though it’s difficult to see. On either side is a silver knob, and the paper is halfway through the mechanism. It’s also blank, which seems a bit odd; I would think that “It was a dark and stormy night” would be there for all the world to see, but perhaps they were afraid of water damage. The typewriter is entirely non-functional, but that’s probably for the best; I could see the piece of paper easily getting lost if it could be maneuvered back and forth.

While my Captain Kirk and Captain Picard ornaments are so large as to be unwieldy, Snoopy is in danger of getting swallowed up by the tree because he’s so small. He hangs just fine, but I have to be careful to put him in a prominent spot, lest I accidentally leave him dangling from the branch when the tree goes out. He’s too big for a miniature tree, of which we have a few, but he rests easily on a flat surface, so it also works well to set him in front of the tree on the piano or the table. Wherever he is, Literary Ace Snoopy is a welcome part of our Christmas celebration.

Sarah McLachlan Fills Wintersong With Melancholy and Surprising Melodies

Sarah McLachlan is an artist with whom I have some familiarity, thanks to her distinctive voice and the popularity of some of her songs, particularly Angel, which is one of several excellent tracks on the City of Angels soundtrack, which is so much better than the movie. I wasn’t too surprised that a woman who so famously sang about angels had a Christmas album out, and I was anxious to hear how she would put her own unique stamp on classic carols, along with more contemporary fare. For the most part, I liked what I heard.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Sarah’s voice always seem to have a yearning quality to it, which makes it especially suited to this John Lennon classic. The constant current of sleigh bells helps balance the song with a more optimistic feel, as do the chorus of children who chime in on the “War is over” portion, rather late in the song. Their voices are a little too high for my tastes, making the words a little hard to understand the first time through, but otherwise it’s a nice cover. “And so this is Christmas / And what have we done? / Another year over, / And a new one just begun...”

What Child Is This (Greensleeves) - This is an interesting version of the song because the melody only occasionally bears any resemblance to the one I’m used to. I like the delicacy of the rendition, and the harmonies are lovely, but I can’t decide how I feel about the tune being so different. Also, in a couple of places she changes a few words. Usually it doesn’t bother me, but in one instance she changes the first of a rhyming pair without changing the second, which results in it sounding incomplete.

River - This melancholy song is another that seems to fit especially well with Sarah’s voice, especially on the chorus where she sings of wanting to fly, with her voice soaring up to the rafters. The song ends with the piano giving us a minor version of Jingle Bells that emphasizes the sadness of the speaker. “It’s coming on Christmas / They’re cutting down trees / They're putting up reindeer / And singing songs of joy and peace / Oh I wish I had a river / I could skate away on...”

Wintersong - Another very lonely sort of song, this one is piano-driven, and in that accompaniment I occasionally hear a hint of Dan Fogelberg‘s Same Old Lang Syne, or maybe I just imagine that I do since both have to do with lost love. A downer, but quite lovely nonetheless, and the only one on the album written by Sarah McLachlan herself. “And this is how I see you / In the snow on Christmas morning / Love and happiness surround you / As you throw your arms up to the sky / I keep this moment by and by.”

I'll Be Home For Christmas - Another wistful track, this one features a saxophone solo and an undercurrent of very desolate-sounding instrument that reminds me of ocean surf. A nice track, but rather spooky.

O Little Town of Bethlehem - The guitar work on this one is very interesting; I’m guessing that what I’m hearing on this one is the dobro, a type of guitar I don’t recall ever encountering before. It has a very distinct sound that is somewhat reminiscent of a banjo. Sarah’s vocals on this one are so soft are to almost sound like whispers, particularly since I was so much more focused on the instruments.

The First Noel / Mary Mary - The first is a very familiar song, while the second is one I’d never heard before, but it’s a tender, quiet sort of lullaby. The song also briefly features the melody of The Little Drummer Boy. While the track begins with The First Noel, it quickly goes on to Mary Mary before returning to the original, which has a completely unfamiliar melody and is augmented with urgently mysterious Middle Eastern-sounding instrumentals. As with What Child Is This, I’m not sure how I feel about it having such a different tune. But I do like the quiet finale of the song. “Some people call him Emmanuel / Think I’ll call him Jesus / Glory be to the newborn King.”

Silent Night - There are some really gorgeous harmonies on this piano-driven track that deviates occasionally from the familiar melody, though not to anywhere near the extent of the previous track. One of my favorite tracks on the album.

Song For a Winter's Night - This one caught me by surprise because I’m a big Gordon Lightfoot fan, but I don’t think I’d ever heard this song before. I’ll have to see if I can track down Gord’s version. Sarah’s is richly harmonic, with an odd sort of syncopated rhythm to it as she alternates between her alone and her in multiple. Probably my favorite track. “If I could only have you near to breathe a sigh or two / I would be happy just to hold the hands I love and to be once again with you.”

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - A backdrop of jingling bells gives this a fairly upbeat feel, though the flugelhorn solo hits closer to the tune’s typical wistful tone.

In the Bleak Mid Winter - A reverent version of a carol whose last verse is well-known but that nonetheless doesn’t seem to make it onto very many Christmas albums. Some nice guitar work on this one, and Sarah’s vocals are softly beautiful. “What can I give Him, poor as I am? / If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; / If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; / Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.”

Christmas Time Is Here - This song from A Charlie Brown Christmas pairs Sarah with Diana Krall on the piano. I think I prefer her version to the original, with its chorus of singing children. It’s very mellow and a gentle way to end the album. “Sleighbells in the air / Beauty everywhere / Yuletide by the fireside and joyful memories there...”

While some of Sarah McLachlan’s arrangements take arguably too much liberty with the melody, it’s interesting to hear such different takes on familiar tunes, not to mention a couple of songs I’d never heard before at all. This is a melancholy album; I’m not sure it quite delivers the dose of cheer expected of most Christmas projects, but if you’re looking for something a little different in your CD player this December, Wintersong may be just the thing for you.

Linus Learns the Pitfalls and Triumphs of Campaigning in You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown

One of my favorite Halloween traditions is watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We have the special on tape, but there's something extra-special about snuggling in to watch it with the rest of America on network television. Just to make it more of an event, the special is often coupled with a second; this year, it was You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, which has more in common with the Halloween special than one might think.

While Great Pumpkin takes place primarily on Halloween itself, You're Not Elected is set slightly earlier in October, making it seasonally appropriate for Halloween, as well as upcoming Election Day. Nobody seems to be paying much attention to that this year, but when it ran last year, it seemed especially fitting. Both specials focus primarily on Linus, which surprised me a bit the first time I watched this. Given the title, I figured it would focus on Charlie Brown's attempts to get elected. But while he briefly considers running, he abandons any thought of candidacy when Lucy's early poll reveals a complete lack of support. Linus has a much better shot, if only because Lucy is more eager to threaten physical violence on her brother's behalf, so Linus is the one stuck in the spotlight while his sister and friends campaign to get him as much recognition as possible.

You're Not Elected offers some sly commentary on the political process, emphasizing the importance of publicity and strong oratory skills and the dangers of mixing politics and religion. It's no surprise that precocious Linus is a gifted speaker, and one particularly rousing speech recalls Marc Antony's "Friends, Romans, countrymen" spiel. But when he lets his passion for the Great Pumpkin leak into his platform... Well, that's problematic. What's more, Schulz seems to speak through disillusioned Sally when she declares that campaigns are nothing but empty promises and that once elected, officials are bound to just sell out to The Man.

Lucy is her usual abrasive self in this special, but she channels her energy in positive directions, and she and Charlie Brown make a surprisingly good team. Meanwhile, there's a recurring bit with Snoopy, in his Joe Cool guise, trying to pass himself off as a member of the student body. He even has his own jazzy theme song performed by Vince Guaraldi to match the persona. Those scenes aren't as dynamic as his Flying Ace fantasies, and it's strange to have all the action taking place at school, so detached from the landmarks of Charlie Brown's yard. But his contributions are always fun. Other characters like Sally, Schroeder and Violet have minor roles to play.

This special came out in 1972, seven years after the first, so it's not the original Charlie Brown voice cast, but they all sound convincing in their roles, especially Stephen Shea, who took over the role of Linus for his brother Christopher. The special ends rather abruptly, and in a different way than I might have expected. But it feels like an appropriate ending, one of mingled triumph and defeat. Every accomplishment in the Peanuts world seems to come tinged with disappointment, every let-down with a silver lining. Linus is probably my favorite of the human Peanuts characters, so I was happy to root for him for half an hour, even though he'd spent the half hour before it waiting fruitlessly for the Great Pumpkin. Win or lose, it's rewarding to watch Linus and his supporters make the effort.

It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown Leaves a Bit to Be Desired

In honor of National Poetry Month, I'm writing a few reviews in rhyme this April. Here's my take on It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, a Peanuts special from the 70s that is amusing but doesn't quite do justice to the holiday. I was similarly disappointed with the Peanuts Thanksgiving special; maybe Peppermint Patty and Marcie are to blame...

It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown

I know that when the holidays come 'round,
A Peanuts special likely will appear.
I've come to count on good ol' Charlie Brown
Delivering a dose of Christmas cheer,
And Halloween just wouldn't be the same
If Linus didn't haunt that pumpkin patch.
So Charles Schulz's genius is to blame
If each one is a show I want to catch.

In It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown,
The unifying theme is not as strong.
We see the buddies venture into town,
Where money-toting Snoopy tags along
To buy a birdhouse for his feathered pal,
Whose luck with homes is Eeyorishly poor.
As Patty and the glasses-wearing gal,
Who's shockingly unversed in Easter lore,
Attempt to boil and color a few eggs,
Resilient Linus bends young Sally's ear
About the Easter Beagle, and he begs
A second chance to prove he is sincere.

An Easter Beagle? Hm, I wonder who
Could frolic merrily onto the scene,
Convincing Linus his beliefs are true?
And how is it that Marcie is so green
She absolutely cannot comprehend
That hard-boiled eggs are neither fried nor cooked?
Does Patty ever think to show her friend
The process Marcie somehow overlooked?

The special is all silly slapstick stuff.
It doesn't mention any empty tomb.
If all you're seeking is a bit of fluff,
Then it's a yummy goodie to consume.
But is it up to standard? No, not quite.
It's not profound. The plot's a little thin.
The members of the voice cast don't sound right.
And in the end, poor Charlie still can't win.

The characters? Inarguably great.
The music? Peppy. Animation? Fun.
But if you want the best installment, wait
Till Christmas; this is clearly not the one.

Will Mom Get In the Way When Rerun Wants a Dog for Christmas?

It's been more than 40 years since a droopy little tree and a recitation from the Gospel of Luke first charmed television audiences in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Since then, it has become a cherished tradition. I don't think any Peanuts special since has quite captured the majesty of that first one, but whenever one of them is aired on television, I look forward to sitting down and watching it. Because Christmas is such a popular subject, it's not too surprising that the Peanuts gang starred in more than one Christmas special.

Several years ago I watched It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, a fun but rather scattered special involving, among other things, Sally's determination to remember her big line in the upcoming play and her insistence that Harold Angel was going to be singing in the program. More recently, I watched I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown, a Peanuts special produced after the death of Charles Schulz but taken from his strips, many of which can be found in the book It's a Dog's Life, Snoopy.

While It's Christmastime Again is largely a series of vignettes, I Want a Dog for Christmas has a pretty strong plot thread. Its main focus is Rerun (Jimmy Bennett), Linus's (Corey Patnos) little look-alike brother, who is always showing up on Charlie Brown's (Adam Taylor Gordon) doorstep asking if Snoopy (Bill Melendez) can come out and play. Usually his idea of playing involves Snoopy catching a ball and bringing it back or Snoopy puling Rerun on a sled - strenuous activities requiring a very tolerant pooch. Snoopy is only occasionally accommodating; more often, he's sitting inside laughing hysterically at the audacity of this pipsqueak.

Naturally, Rerun wouldn't have to be constantly trying to borrow Charlie Brown's dog if the Van Pelt residence had a dog as well. So Rerun, undeterred by older sister Lucy's (Ashley Rose) protests that their mother will never let him keep a dog, sets out to ask Santa for his heart's desire. Eventually, though, it's Snoopy who provides what seems like the perfect opportunity; it seems his desert-dwelling brother Spike has been lonesome of late and might just be amenable to a new living arrangement...

While Linus has always been my favorite of the Van Pelts - and probably my favorite human character in the strip - Rerun is pretty fun to observe. He's a very quirky kid who's not at all afraid to speak his mind. His conversations with a kindergarten classmate (Kaitlyn Maggio) are illuminating, and his lack of tact as he complains, in the presence of Linus and Lucy, about his family situation reminds me of my own little brother. It's not always easy being the youngest - though as the (hopefully less crabby) Lucy of my family, I contend that the youngest sometimes don't know how easy they have it!

Though Spike has a fairly minor role in the special, it's always fun to see Snoopy's relatives, and Spike's bland personality seems well suited to a lad who wants a dog he can control; Snoopy is much too independent for that. The first time I watched this, I had my doubts about it, since I hadn't been particularly impressed with Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown, a special which was released earlier that same year. I was pleased to find the story engaging and humorous, with plenty of Snoopy to keep things fun. I also appreciated that the characters all sounded fairly similar to those in A Charlie Brown Christmas; there have been specials in which the voices have sounded decidedly off to me. Compared to that classic, I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown feels like a bit of a lightweight, but standing on its own it is a perfectly solid special, and one of the better Peanuts adventures I've seen.