SeedSing Classic: Advent Calendar of Awesome Holiday Music: Day 1 - Linus and Lucy

ed note: This article was originally published on December 1st, 2015

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we are looking back at the great holiday music, movies, television episodes, and food of this great season. Enjoy

Day 1: Linus and Lucy By The Vince Guaraldi Trio 

Every year my wife and I throw a big winter holiday party. One of my duties is to create the background music. In the first few years we held the party I purchased a few sets of generic Christmas music cd sets. Many of the pieces were from the public domain, and almost all of the songs were jazz. I really dislike jazz. 

A few years back I decided to create a custom playlist from the holiday songs I loved. I wanted the music to reflect the whole season, and I wanted to use songs not widely available. The one song I salvaged from those awful jazz standards was "Linus and Lucy" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. This was the one and only jazz song I needed for my holiday spirit. This was the song that kicked off my carefully curated holiday playlist. "Linus and Lucy" is the best way to start the season.

"Linus and Lucy" is not exactly a Christmas song. It was originally released by the Vince Guaraldi Trio on the 1964 album Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown. The upbeat guitar and drums represent the excitement of the holiday season. There is pure joy and excitement throughout "Linus and Lucy". Once December 1st hits, the holiday season starts moving at a hectic pace. Crowded roads, overpopulated shopping centers, and disorganized homes filled with unwrapped gifts. "Linus and Lucy" embrace this chaos, and makes it joyful. 

The Christmas popularity for "Linus and Lucy" started when A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in December of 1965. The upbeat tune was used as the music for the greatest dancing scene in television history. Many people will automatically think of the Charlie Brown Christmas pageant dancing when they hear "Linus and Lucy". This scene was shot in 1965 and we have voguing, the zombie, the twin girls doing the same dance, and a variety of incredible dance moves. When I hear "Linus and Lucy" I immediately break out into Linus's thrust movement, even if I am out in public (that does get awkward at times).

Since the debut of A Charlie Brown Christmas "Linus and Lucy" has become the unofficial Peanuts anthem. Most of the Peanuts cartoon specials have used the song, including the 2015 film The Peanuts Movie. The song receives the large majority of its airplay during the holiday season. The popularity of A Charlie Brown Christmas has programmed our culture to associate "Linus and Lucy" with the holidays. The song kicks off It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, yet "Linus and Lucy" makes our mind think of the December holiday extravaganza.

"Linus and Lucy" is the perfect first door to open on our Awesome Holiday Music Advent Calendar. This is the tune that will get your holiday spirit ready. It is chaotic, joyful, and demands to be danced to. If you start your day with "Linus and Lucy" your holiday spirit will never dim.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. His wife has asked him to stop the Linus out in public, the Shermie is ok though. Tell us all about your favorite holiday tune - write for SeedSing.

SeedSing Classic: Advent Calendar of Awesome Holiday Music: Day 1 - Linus and Lucy

ed note: This article was originally published on December 1st, 2015

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we are looking back at the great holiday music, movies, television episodes, and food of this great season. Enjoy

Day 1: Linus and Lucy By The Vince Guaraldi Trio 

Every year my wife and I throw a big winter holiday party. One of my duties is to create the background music. In the first few years we held the party I purchased a few sets of generic Christmas music cd sets. Many of the pieces were from the public domain, and almost all of the songs were jazz. I really dislike jazz. 

A few years back I decided to create a custom playlist from the holiday songs I loved. I wanted the music to reflect the whole season, and I wanted to use songs not widely available. The one song I salvaged from those awful jazz standards was "Linus and Lucy" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. This was the one and only jazz song I needed for my holiday spirit. This was the song that kicked off my carefully curated holiday playlist. "Linus and Lucy" is the best way to start the season.

"Linus and Lucy" is not exactly a Christmas song. It was originally released by the Vince Guaraldi Trio on the 1964 album Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown. The upbeat guitar and drums represent the excitement of the holiday season. There is pure joy and excitement throughout "Linus and Lucy". Once December 1st hits, the holiday season starts moving at a hectic pace. Crowded roads, overpopulated shopping centers, and disorganized homes filled with unwrapped gifts. "Linus and Lucy" embrace this chaos, and makes it joyful. 

The Christmas popularity for "Linus and Lucy" started when A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in December of 1965. The upbeat tune was used as the music for the greatest dancing scene in television history. Many people will automatically think of the Charlie Brown Christmas pageant dancing when they hear "Linus and Lucy". This scene was shot in 1965 and we have voguing, the zombie, the twin girls doing the same dance, and a variety of incredible dance moves. When I hear "Linus and Lucy" I immediately break out into Linus's thrust movement, even if I am out in public (that does get awkward at times).

Since the debut of A Charlie Brown Christmas "Linus and Lucy" has become the unofficial Peanuts anthem. Most of the Peanuts cartoon specials have used the song, including the 2015 film The Peanuts Movie. The song receives the large majority of its airplay during the holiday season. The popularity of A Charlie Brown Christmas has programmed our culture to associate "Linus and Lucy" with the holidays. The song kicks off It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, yet "Linus and Lucy" makes our mind think of the December holiday extravaganza.

"Linus and Lucy" is the perfect first door to open on our Awesome Holiday Music Advent Calendar. This is the tune that will get your holiday spirit ready. It is chaotic, joyful, and demands to be danced to. If you start your day with "Linus and Lucy" your holiday spirit will never dim.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. His wife has asked him to stop the Linus out in public, the Shermie is ok though. Tell us all about your favorite holiday tune - write for SeedSing.

The Monsters Live on Charlie Brown's Street

Give this as a treat on Halloween and expect it to go through your window as a trick

Happy Halloween. Please enjoy this post from holidays past. The article was originally posted on October 31st, 2015.

Today is Halloween.

I expected that many of you already know this. Ty has talked about what he  likes about Halloween (The Simpsons) and what he generally dislikes (everything else). We even had a great conversation about the good and bad on Halloween (beer good, puns bad). What I think many people can agree with is that the entertainment around the spookiest of holidays is pretty darn good. I may not like haunted houses, but they are very impressive pieces of theater. Cracked.com writer Adam Tod Brown does a much better job describing the experience of haunted houses better than I could (read his latest piece on an intense experience). The best horror and slasher movies tend to be campy, innovative, or just plain scary. It is a genre that covers all of the human emotional spectrum. Television also gets in the Halloween act, and there have been some timeless television mined out of the spirit of All Hallows Eve.

In my humble opinion there is not a better, or more timeless, piece of Halloween entertainment than "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". First airing in 1966, this special has been going strong for almost 50 years now. I always feel like the fall / winter holiday season has started when I see Linus and Lucy Van Pelt come out their front door and the Vince Guaraldi Sextet breaks into the jazz number "Linus and Lucy". That is the sound of the holidays to me, and I hate jazz. The characters set the mood with very little dialogue. In the first five minutes you get Lucy being snobby, Linus being emotional, Snoopy being innovative, and Charlie Brown being put upon. The animation and artwork are magnificent. You can easily see that it is fall in this community. The colors give off a feeling of briskness. During the Snoopy - Red Baron sequences the art work starts to resemble surrealistic paintings. Watching "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" is like taking a stroll through the best art museums of the world.

The actual story is as timeless as the animation. Linus has an incredible belief that all the other kids ridicule him for. Linus does not waver from his belief, coming back stronger after his eventually disappointment. Sally has a crush and just wants to be with her beloved, but even she demands justice (restitution) when the night was taken away by a crazy belief. Snoopy's imagination is educational (look up all the spots he walks through in France during World War I), and exciting. The kids may be mean to each other, especially Charlie Brown, but they still all do everything together.

The kids are definitely cruel to poor Charles, but the adults in this town are psychopaths. I know the adults never appear as main characters in the Peanuts universe, but the actions attributed the grown ups paints a picture of horrible people. Who in their rational thinking mind would give a kid a rock on Halloween? If that had been me, the rock would have gone through the givers window. What gets me is that Charlie Brown did not just get one rock, he got a bag full of them. The adults all decided to pick on this one, bald, chubby, little kid. Charlie Brown may not be good with scissors, but he still deserves some candy. Give him the Mounds bar or Whoppers, or even candy corn. 

Surprisingly this is not the cruelest thing done by the adults in "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". The Van Pelt parents not only let their young son go hang out in a pumpkin patch on Halloween night, in Minnesota no less, they leave him there all night. Lucy has her alarm set for 4:00am to get her shivering little brother and put him to bed. Were the Van Pelts too drunk and could not be woken up? Were they still out drinking? Monsters, the whole lot of them.

"It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" is the greatest piece of Halloween entertainment ever created. I hope your holiday festivities include a viewing of this classic. It has everything one wants in Halloween entertainment. The joy of the children, the imagination of the creative, the belief in mystical creature, and the terror of a group of adult monsters. Do not miss or you will have just wait till next year. You and Linus will just be waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head editor for SeedSing. While he was writing this piece his wife used RD's bald head as a model for her pumpkin carving. Good grief. Come tell us what holiday entertainment is the best by writing for SeedSing.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

SeedSing's Advent Calendar of Awesome Holiday Television Programs: Day 1 - "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we will present a new awesome holiday television program for every day of Advent. This is the greatest tv of the season. Enjoy.

Day 1: A Charlie Brown Christmas. Original air date December 9th, 1965

The holiday season can be filled with angst, frustration, and depression.The terrible traffic, the non-stop advertisements, the rude people, these all make December a rough month for many people. The latest, hottest, toys are overpriced and can never be found in the stores. Idiots are on YouTube complaining about Starbucks cups. Lexus is still running those moronic ads where some idiot buys his wife a new car for Christmas, and instead of divorcing the jackass, she jumps up for joy when she spies the gauche red bow on top of the car. Many a December night, people cry out in their minds "What does it all mean".

On December 9th, 1965, CBS aired the first, of many, Peanuts holiday specials simply titled A Charlie Brown Christmas. The special was written by Peanuts creator Charles M. Schultz, based on his wildly popular comic strip. The show was an immediate hit. A Charlie Brown Christmas has been shown every year since the premier, and the program has won an Emmy and a Peabody Award. The jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi was also a smash success, and created one of the most iconic holiday songs ever. Multiple generations have grown up watching, and loving, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Part of the appeal that is A Charlie Brown Christmas is in the tone of the story. Many shows that focus on Christmas are filled with joy and excitement. A Charlie Brown Christmas is slow and filled with big questions. Charlie Brown is frustrated with the Christmas season, and he acknowledges that the holidays make him depressed. Everyone around him is only interested in the commercial aspects of the holiday. Even his dog Snoopy is trying to cash in on the facade of Christmas. When Charlie Brown seeks counsel from Lucy on what to do about his depression, she informs him that his problem is that Charlie Brown is not involved enough. Lucy is saying that Charlie Brown should join the crowd and celebrate Christmas like they do.

The way Charlie Brown gets involved is by directing the other kids in a nativity play. Instead of the kids practicing for a manger scene, the world instead gets the greatest dancing ever committed to pop culture. This does not sit well with Charlie Brown, he still does not see the meaning of Christmas. Lucy continues her charitable work and urges Charlie Brown to go get a fancy, modern, tree for the play. The artifice of Christmas wins out over tradition again.

Many people will point to Linus reciting the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2, Verses 8 - 14 as the moment where A Charlie Brown Christmas reveals what the holidays really mean. I disagree. That is a powerful moment, and I am not a religious person, but the real meaning of Christmas is found in the tree Charlie Brown purchases. All the other kids are right to laugh at Charlie Brown, he purposefully bought an inferior product. The little, weak, tree did not represent the modern spirit of Christmas. It was not flashy, new, and exciting. The kids wanted a tree that matched their dancing, and their dancing was crazy.

The little tree purchased at the lot represents the bridge between a traditional and a new Christmas. Charlie Brown's tree was something struggling for life amongst the cold and commercialization of December. The tree represented that little bit of hope the shepherds were looking for in the Gospel of Luke. But while the story of the nativity is an old tale of mankind's hope, Charlie Brown's tree became an updated version of the Bible story. The simple tree brought light into Charlie Brown's dark holiday season. Even when he gives up hope again, the other kids adapt the tree to look more modern. What Christmas means to someone in 1965, or 2016, is not found in a Bible fable, it is found in taking the tale and modernizing it. The Peanuts kids took the simple tree, and made it fit with the time. The clothes that Christmas wears are flashy and new, but the heart can still be a tree that needed someone to care. A group of people quietly humming a beautiful hymn, in the late night snow, with a simple tree dressed for a modern time, that is where we find joy in the holiday season of today.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is the perfect holiday television program in getting one ready for the holiday season. The problems faced by Charlie Brown are the same ones we face today. Over-commercialisation, feelings of isolation, and wicked dancing, these things existed in 1965 and are still around today. The lesson is not to dismiss all the modern problems that have taken over the holidays, we should find a way to meld the traditions with the new, and better, things. The heart of Christmas may originate from a 2000-year-old Bible story that was about finding hope in a dark night, and that heart does not have to change. We can take the ancient lessons of togetherness and humanity and put a modern dress on it. There is nothing wrong with adding some wicked dance moves to the angel of the Lord's message delivered to the shepherds. That is what Christmas is all about.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He will also only eat February snowflakes. December flakes are way too sour.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing

SeedSing's Advent Calendar of Awesome Holiday Music: Day 1 - Linus and Lucy

ed note: This article was originally published on December 1st, 2015

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we will present a new awesome holiday song for every day of Advent. This is the greatest music of the season. Enjoy.

Day 1: Linus and Lucy By The Vince Guaraldi Trio 

Every year my wife and I throw a big winter holiday party. One of my duties is to create the background music. In the first few years we held the party I purchased a few sets of generic Christmas music cd sets. Many of the pieces were from the public domain, and almost all of the songs were jazz. I really dislike jazz. 

A few years back I decided to create a custom playlist from the holiday songs I loved. I wanted the music to reflect the whole season, and I wanted to use songs not widely available. The one song I salvaged from those awful jazz standards was "Linus and Lucy" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. This was the one and only jazz song I needed for my holiday spirit. This was the song that kicked off my carefully curated holiday playlist. "Linus and Lucy" is the best way to start the season.

"Linus and Lucy" is not exactly a Christmas song. It was originally released by the Vince Guaraldi Trio on the 1964 album Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown. The upbeat guitar and drums represent the excitement of the holiday season. There is pure joy and excitement throughout "Linus and Lucy". Once December 1st hits, the holiday season starts moving at a hectic pace. Crowded roads, overpopulated shopping centers, and disorganized homes filled with unwrapped gifts. "Linus and Lucy" embrace this chaos, and makes it joyful. 

The Christmas popularity for "Linus and Lucy" started when A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in December of 1965. The upbeat tune was used as the music for the greatest dancing scene in television history. Many people will automatically think of the Charlie Brown Christmas pageant dancing when they hear "Linus and Lucy". This scene was shot in 1965 and we have voguing, the zombie, the twin girls doing the same dance, and a variety of incredible dance moves. When I hear "Linus and Lucy" I immediately break out into Linus's thrust movement, even if I am out in public (that does get awkward at times).

Since the debut of A Charlie Brown Christmas "Linus and Lucy" has become the unofficial Peanuts anthem. Most of the Peanuts cartoon specials have used the song, including the 2015 film The Peanuts Movie. The song receives the large majority of its airplay during the holiday season. The popularity of A Charlie Brown Christmas has programmed our culture to associate "Linus and Lucy" with the holidays. The song kicks off It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, yet "Linus and Lucy" makes our mind think of the December holiday extravaganza.

"Linus and Lucy" is the perfect first door to open on our Awesome Holiday Music Advent Calendar. This is the tune that will get your holiday spirit ready. It is chaotic, joyful, and demands to be danced to. If you start your day with "Linus and Lucy" your holiday spirit will never dim.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. His wife has asked him to stop the Linus out in public, the Shermie is ok though. Tell us all about your favorite holiday tune - write for SeedSing.