It’s a little bit hard to realize that I’ve been watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” for fifty years. In some ways, that is. The other night when we saw it (and the special that preceded it) I thought about all the “lessons” it has taught me over the years. Or maybe not the Christmas special per se – probably the Peanuts gang, in general.

My own son Charlie was seven the year of the first Charlie Brown Christmas on TV. I’m quite sure that my Charlie had given up his “Byla” by then – his beloved blanket that was finally in tatters and had turned permanently from blue to gray. I’m pretty certain he didn’t start school with it. But I’m also pretty sure that it was Linus who had made us all feel that hanging onto Byla well beyond babyhood was an okay thing to do. Not necessarily in the Christmas special, of course. After all, the comic strip had started in 1950 – well before my Charlie was born. Heck, I was just a kid myself!

I do know, however, that the debut of the now infamous ‘Charlie Brown Christmas tree’ forever took the pressure off getting the perfect tree every year. In fact, there were years when we purposely looked for the tree that might need the most love. And Charlie Brown’s disgust with Snoopy’s over-the-top decorations on his doghouse (to say nothing of that first prize ribbon) no doubt influenced me in the Outside Decoration Department, too. As in… no lights, no flashing Rudolph noses, no ostentation; just a simple wreath or swag.

Charlie Brown’s alter ego (or vice-versa), Charles Schulz, influenced me in one other important way. In 1962 or 1963, he came and spoke at Southgate School in Hayward, California, where I was teaching. By then, most of us were vaguely familiar with the comic strip and I think Mr. Schulz was on some sort of lecture tour – talking about following your passion and how a lifetime of doodling had led to the creation of the Peanuts gang.

What he said that I’ve never forgotten was that he put in an eight-hour-day every day whether he was feeling ‘inspired’ or not. He described getting up, getting dressed, having his breakfast and going out to his ‘office’ which, I think, was a separate building behind his house. He talked about the days that he just “drew anything” and the times that “something just worked out.” And he talked about perseverance versus inspiration and which was the most important. His work ethic message was loud and clear and I’ve never forgotten it.

I wish he were still around so I could thank him. As it is, I think I’ll pay another visit to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. I’ll be going right by it on my way to Christmas with my own Charlie!