A Charlie Brown Christmas

Quote of the day:
"Everybody complains of his memory, but nobody of his judgment."
--Francois VI, duke de la Rouchefoucauld (1655)

We’ve been having a lot of fun this year feeding all our Christmas music into iTunes and letting it shuffle. Just like Apple says, it’s like having our own radio station.

We own a dozen CDs of Christmas music, and about 20 LPs. A few are quite good, some are so-so and one or two are highly questionable and rarely played.

Every year we play Vince Guaraldi’s “Charlie Brown Christmas.” It’s become a traditional part of our holiday.

A lot of people are like us, I guess. This Christmas album is one of iTunes’ most-downloaded.

The music is good, of course. But more important, it bonds us to the times we first saw “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

This is a Christmas tradition from the 20th century that will stick with us for quite a while. It’s like “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” and stockings from earlier eras. Do you think it’s joined the pantheon of most-important traditions?

I think so. The movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” is climbing the tradition charts, too.

The barking dogs are not climbing, though we will be complaining about them for another 30 years or so.