The Christmas Story

We were watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” last year with the kids when I came up with an idea for a story. Most don’t know that this show nearly didn’t get the green light from CBS back in 1965 because of Linus’ reading from the book of Luke. You know the part, when he tells Charlie Brown that he knows the true meaning of Christmas.

Well, CBS told Charles Schultz to forget it. Drop the Bible reading or the show. But Schultz insisted. The show won an Emmy and has been one of the top rated Christmas specials every year for the past 41 years. Shultz also dropped a sneaky reference in the show too. When Linus reads the words “Fear Not”, he drops his security blanket.

I’ve wanted to do this story for years but none of the tv stations would let me do it. I wanted to have someone read that passage for broadcast on Christmas Eve. Not an easy sell to be sure for a local newscast.

But this year is different. News 2 liked the idea, so we’ll air a reading of the Christmas story on Christmas Eve. I’ve been working on it for the past month or so and I think it’s going to be really good. My bosses also agreed to make the segment available to area churches for their own Christmas eve services. I don’t remember a station ever doing something like that, especially giving them a story to use in a service before it airs. So far, we have about 40 churches that want to use it.

I’ll try to post the video here sometime after it airs on tv.