We're all pretty familiar with the 1965 television classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas. But how familiar are you with the other Peanuts specials that celebrate this time of year? In fact, there are 4 in all!

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

The "sequel" to the classic appeared some 27 years later when It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown hit the airwaves on CBS in 1992. Interestingly, this was actually released to video first, via an exclusive at Shell gas stations.

It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown (1992)

You can tell by watching that it tried to emulate the success of the original, and by doing so, failed miserably. Once you get past the annoying smooth jazz versions of Vince Guaraldi's music, you are treated to a plotline involving Charlie Brown trying to sell wreaths and buy gloves, Peppermint Patti attempting to get out of a book report, and yes, another Christmas play… with Scripture thrown in along the way. You'll never think of "Hark!" quite the same way after watching Sally practice her lines. Intended to be broadcast in a 30-minute timeslot for years to come, it was never seen on TV again. You can find it as a bonus feature on the DVD release for A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's not a great show, but it's fun to watch… kinda.

Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales (2002)

Licking their wounds from the Christmastime disaster, a new mini-special appeared 10 years later in 2002. By this time, ABC had won the broadcast rights to the Peanuts specials away from CBS (which had shown the special for 35 years). This move was heralded as a big deal. To show that things were different (but better), ABC commissioned a new, shorter special called Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales. You see, in recent years CBS had been editing down the original episode to run more commercials in the 30-minute timeslot. ABC wanted to run the special unedited, but that would have created an odd time length in today's commercial climate, surpassing the 30-minute mark. To solve this problem, Christmas Tales was created to fill out the rest of the time, creating an hour-long block.

Compared to how Christmastime was handled, I was very happy with the way Christmas Tales came out. Instead of attempting a whole new storyline, it was decided to feature little vignettes focusing on various characters around the holidays. Given that most of the gags and plots were pulled from Schultz's comics, which in itself are short in length, this format worked really well. There's also a slight modernization of characters, while still paying tribute to the original special. Additionally, the music greatly improved as it more closely resembled Guaraldi's original style.

I Want A Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown (2003)

I would imagine the critical success of Christmas Tales prompted ABC to fund an entirely new Christmas special, this time to run a full hour. The result is 2003's I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown. Again, working to compliment — rather than recreate — the magic of the original special, this show is completely different, but in a good way. It focuses on Lucy and Linus' youngest sibling, Rerun, who really wants a dog for Christmas. This puts the whole experience through the eyes of a semi-obscure character (even though he was introduced in 1972 and got a lot of coverage in the 1990s). There's also a certain warmth to be found with this storyline… plus, you get to meet Snoopy's brothers! The original DVD release of this show featured Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales as a bonus, which made it a great find. However, that DVD is now out of print. Warner Bros has rereleased Dog on a Deluxe Edition DVD, but that version drops the inclusion of Christmas Tales. Instead, Tales is now available on its own DVD release.

Now that you know the stories behind these specials, why not watch them? As a special treat between now and Christmas, we'll be featuring all 4 of these Charlie Brown Christmas specials here for you to watch in their entirety at your leisure. I own all of these on DVD and would encourage you to do the same. But if you haven't seen any of these specials, now is the time to catch them online. Once December 26 hits, they're gone!

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