Charlie Brown's Christmas Stocking, Hardcover/Charles M. Schulz

During his fifty-year career, ninety-nine percent of Charles Schulz s creative energies went into the daily Peanuts comic strip. But once in a while he would create a special something else on the side, and this adorable little package collects two of his best extras from the 1960s: two Christmas-themed stories written and drawn for national magazines. Created in 1963 (two years before the Charlie Brown Christmas TV special) as a supplement for Good Housekeeping magazine, Charlie Brown s Christmas Stocking comprises 15 original captioned vignettes featuring the entire Peanuts cast of the time Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Frieda, Violet, Shermy, and Sally each with a joke or reflection about the season. The Christmas Story is an original tale created for Woman s Day in 1968, this one focusing just on Snoopy and the Van Pelt siblings, with Lucy and Linus each explaining the meaning of the holiday to Snoopy. I m going to have to be careful, Snoopy reflects at the end of the story, resting on his doghouse next to his bone-decorated tree; all this theology could ruin my Christmas. The book also includes notes on the provenance of the stories and a pocket-sized biography of Schulz. A perfect gift item for the season