NO LINUS AT THE MALL The classic Peanuts holiday special strikes the right note if the season's commercialism leaves you cold

A Charlie Brown Christmas: © 1965 United Features Syndicate

A Charlie Brown Christmas

The first of the classic TV specials drawn from Charles Schulz's ''Peanuts'' comics, this perennial features no grown-ups, of course, yet is probably the most adult of holiday specials. No Santa, no syrup, no miracles (unless you count the gang's transformation of that scrawny Christmas tree), just a group of kids who figure out for themselves how to look beyond the commercialization of the holiday to find the True Meaning of Christmas. (Ignore, for a half hour, that Schulz was a maestro of merchandising.) Plus, there's that unforgettable Vince Guaraldi jazz score, guaranteed to make you dance like Snoopy.