Columns & Opinions

Once Christmas has passed, the world looks to a new year. Many wonder what the new year will bring while planning their own ways of ringing in 2023. It will be a year marked with war in some nations and peace in others. There will be triumph, and there will be heartbreak. But in the meantime, the world will pause to celebrate the end of one year and the hopes for the next.

An arctic storm that swept through the state bringing low temperatures and high winds also affected roughly two-thirds of the country’s population, according to the National Weather Service, bringing the coldest Christmas in decades to parts of the country.

A Charlie Brown Christmas aired on December 9, 1965. More than 15.5 million households watched. It immediately became a classic. Its heartwarming message that Christmas was more than about shopping became a comfortable reminder for millions. The special won an Emmy Award in 1966. It had such a profound impact on American culture that aluminum Christmas trees ceased to be made by 1968. In the following years, the special was translated into numerous other languages and broadcast in countries around the world. CBS agreed to produce more Peanuts cartoons, averaging about one per year into the 1990s. And a slew of other Christmas specials, inspired by the Peanuts success, would follow in the years afterward.