For many of us, A Charlie Brown Christmas is as synonymous with the holidays as ice skating, school pageants and finding the perfect tree.

It’s a gift that TV viewers have been unwrapping since Dec. 9, 1965, when the animated special premiered to boffo ratings on CBS, its perennial home until 2000, when ABC acquired the Peanuts classic (along with other long-running specials: It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving). That the special has endured for half a century is unsurprising, given Charles Schulz’s comic-strip creations’ stature in popular culture (revived on the big screen last month in The Peanuts Movie, which has earned $116.8 million).

“Charlie Brown has always been part of the fabric. It doesn’t seem dated. You wouldn’t know when it was made, really,” says TV historian Tim Brooks. Like other holiday movies made between the 1940s and 1960s — including Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer — “it’s a reminder of constancy and tradition. If you think about it, we don’t change the ornaments on the Christmas tree every year, and these are the ornaments on America’s Christmas tree. These things are comforting around this time of year and it’s hard to make new ones.”

Read the article “50 Years in, Charlie Brown Christmas Remains Timeless” on usatoday.com.