{"id":17,"date":"2005-12-06T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-06T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2005\/12\/everything-i-know-about-christ.html"},"modified":"2005-12-06T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-06T12:00:00","slug":"everything-i-know-about-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2005\/12\/everything-i-know-about-christ.html","title":{"rendered":"Everything I Know About Christmas I Learned From Linus"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

This Jew’s second-favorite Christmas tradition is happening tonight: the Charlie Brown special<\/a>. (My #1 favorite is Chinese food and a rented movie on Christmas eve.) It’s not an exaggeration to say that as a kid, the most meaningful lesson I got on the meaning of this holiday was, year after year, from Charlie Brown’s dejection at the commercialism of Christmas, and Linus’s moment in the (literal) spotlight<\/a>, when he reminds his friends–who are bickering over the details of their Christmas pageant–why they mark this special day in the first place.<\/p>\n

Several years ago, as one of the editors here at Beliefnet able to work on Christmas, I was assigned the task of writing copy on Christmas morning for the Christianity page<\/a>. It was a daunting task, to say the least; I needed to sum up in about one sentence the essence of this major holiday. I had years of religion-writing experience, a master’s degree in religion, a year of work at Beliefnet under my belt, and, flummoxed by what to write, I turned–you guessed it–to Linus. I used (with a little gender updating) the simple scriptural words<\/a> he’d used to silence his friends and refocus them on the meaning of Christmas:<\/p>\n

\n

… And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward humankind.’ <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What more could I add? Thank you, Linus.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Jew’s second-favorite Christmas tradition is happening tonight: the Charlie Brown special. (My #1 favorite is Chinese food and a rented movie on Christmas eve.) It’s not an exaggeration to say that as a kid, the most meaningful lesson I got on the meaning of this holiday was, year after year, from Charlie Brown’s dejection…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nEverything I Know About Christmas I Learned From Linus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2005\/12\/everything-i-know-about-christ.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Everything I Know About Christmas I Learned From Linus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This Jew’s second-favorite Christmas tradition is happening tonight: the Charlie Brown special. 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