The frequent reuse of titles for different Peanuts books is one of the tripping points for the collector. Because of that, I should note that the upcoming board book Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown is not the same as the earlier Look-and-Find book Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.

And neither of them is the 2015 book that I finally got this week. This Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! is part of a book-and-stuffed-animal bundle (the stuffed animal being a straight-forward sitting Snoopy.) The book itself is a board book with sound buttons – just three: press Snoopy, you hear a laugh, press Charlie Brown, you hear “Good Grief”, and press the Christmas tree and you’ll hear an instrumental rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” There are six places where you are to push these buttons across the six story pages of the board book.

This isn’t quite an adaptation of A Charlie Brown Christmas, but it’s adjacent to it. Snoopy’s home is decorated in lights, it ends with a bunch of Peanuts characters saying “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!” around a Christmas tree. Clearly, the special is meant to be invoked.

As for where you can get one of these, I’m really not sure. Amazon has never carried it, to the best of my knowledge. I ordered mine from Barnes & Noble at the link above, but I think that I got the last one that they had, as it’s now out-of-stock online. They may not be eager to restock a Christmas book in March, even assuming that it’s still available.

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