The AAUGH.com Advent Calendar, 21 days to go

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December 4: Friends Are a Special Part of Christmas

Today’s step on the way to the top of the Peanuts Christmas list is Friends Are a Special Part of Christmas, a 1981 saddle-stitched paperback, which offers “Holiday poems featuring Charlie Brown and his friends”.  Well, the poems are cut with lyrics from traditional (read: public domain) carols, but there are genuine new poems by Bobbi Katz (who would continue writing poetry books for kids well into her seventies, with the most recent new title coming out just a couple years ago.)

But therein lies a particular disappointment that keeps me from loving this book even more, a disappointment that no one else will feel. You see, I first discovered this book via an online used book listing… one that said that the poems were written bot by Bobbi Katz, but by a Rabbi Katz. A book of Christmas poems written by a rabbi… now that would be something that would land even higher on this list!

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A Charlie Brown [SPOILER WARNING] Christmas

So I planned to do a big unboxing of my copy of the newly-released A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Official Advent Calendar. And I actually filmed it all… well, tried to, but in addition to my lack of cinematographic skills, it turns out my cameraphone was stopping and restarting the video …

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The AAUGH.com Advent Calendar, the Big Day

My choice of what the finest non-adaptation-of-A-Charlie-Brown-Christmas Peanuts Christmas book wasn’t a struggle. The Joy of a Peanuts Christmas is quite simply a lovely book of the core of Peanuts. It’s a strip collection, collecting Christmas-themed strips. Now, that would describe a lot of the books on this list, but …

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The AAUGH.com Advent Calendar, 1 day to go

The title of Christmas is Together-Time may be a mite awkward, but what it is isn’t awkward at all. What it is is pure, book-original Schulz, with his reflections on Christmas and what it is. And lest you think that a Christmas giftbook is apt to be pure saccharine, we …