It's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" week. Here's how to watch the "Peanuts" holiday special, including if will air on TV this year.

Jason Mendelson tells PEOPLE why his father, 'Peanuts' producer Lee Mendelson, wasn't sure it would be a success at all

Since its 1965 debut, A Charlie Brown Christmas has entertained generations during the holiday season. No one foresaw that an animated special based on a newspaper comic strip would make millions of people laugh,

"It was absolutely imperative for both Sparky Schulz and for my father that these children, that it be authentic, that it be real. In a Charlie Brown CHristmas, which was the first special, the story is about Children going through emotional, confusing, deep times."

A Charlie Brown Christmas” performer Taylor Priday-Key is a self-proclaimed nerd about “Peanuts,” the beloved comic strip created by Charles M. Schultz that follows the adventures of Charlie Brown, a kind,

This December marks the 60th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas, a half-hour television special that did something almost unheard of in American pop culture, both then and now. In the middle of a prime-time cartoon, a child stepped forward, quieted the noise, and proclaimed the Nativity story from the Gospel of Luke (King James Version):

“They hated it,” producer Lee Mendelson recalled in a 2003 interview with the Archive of American Television. “The two top people just hated it. They said, it’s too slow and it’s very religious … and it’s not particularly funny.” At the time, the show’s producers even agreed.

On Dec. 9, 1965, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" debuted on CBS, and it became an instant classic. Lee Jenkins' home is proof that the show is still a hit six decades later.

It’s the 60th anniversary of A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, which is just as memorable for its music as it is for the story animation.

Planning a trip to the Oregon coast during winter break? The Oregon State Parks annual Winter Whale Watch Week offers 14 volunteer-led watching stations along the coast where you just may spot gray whales on their southward migration to calving lagoons in Mexico.

In the 75 years since its conception, Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip and its subsequent multi-media spin-offs has been a source of joy for people worldwide. In 1965, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” saw the characters of Charlie Brown,