What's it all about, Charlie Brown?

But while we are bombarded with countless new offerings each year, very few survive. The vast majority just don't have what it takes to be a perennial favourite.

Interestingly, some of the best-loved classics came about entirely by accident. Johnny Marks supposedly wrote 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' in 1947 to go with a character his brother-in-law created for the Montgomery Ward department store. James Pierpont wrote 'Jingle Bells' in the mid-19th century without the slightest intention of it becoming a Christmas classic. Charles Dickens, the most successful screenwriter of his day, penned 'A Christmas Carol' quickly in order to meet a particularly tight magazine deadline. And Irving Berlin is said to have thought so little of 'White Christmas' when he wrote it that he kept the original sheet music hidden away in a drawer for years.

The same applies to the best animated TV specials, two of which have not only endured to the point where they are absolutely essential holiday viewing for all ages, every year. They are, of course, 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' and 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'. For many families, a Christmas without either of these two animated gems is unthinkable; it just wouldn't be Christmas without Charlie Brown or the Grinch.

But what makes these two 30-minute cartoons stand out in an overcrowded field after four decades? Certainly not their flashy, state-of-the-art animation, nor their riveting plots. Instead, they are both simple stories told in a straightforward, uncomplicated way.

Charles Schulz's gentle humour and his endearing Peanuts characters were already a successful comic strip combination in 1965, but when he was approached to write an animated Christmas special for television, he had no idea what to do. This was uncharted territory. He was unsure of the plot. Was it Christmassy enough? Was Linus's Bible reading too religious? Producers were also unsure, and the entire project was very nearly pulled from the CBS schedule. But as it turned out, that special combination of Schulz's characters and Vince Guaraldi's jazzy piano score proved to be a hit with viewers and it wasn't long before the show was being held up as the yardstick by which all subsequent efforts would be judged.

The Grinch, produced two years later, blended the witty animation expertise of Chuck Jones (whose long tenure at Warner Brothers gave us not only Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner but also 'One Froggy Evening', widely acknowledged as the most popular cartoon short of all time) with the delightfully offbeat Dr. Seuss, whose successful book provided the blueprint. Add to this the perfect sinister touch in the voice of Boris Karloff, then at the twilight of a successful horror film career that had begun with his seminal portrayal of the Frankenstein monster for Universal way back in the early 1930s.

Again, there was apprehension; producers and sponsors considered the Grinch much too frightening for children, and, like the Peanuts special, the Seuss project was nearly scrapped.

But both shows made it to the air and have since enjoyed overwhelming popularity. It is no coincidence that, despite fundamental differences in style and approach, both relay the same message — regardless of all the trappings of present-day commercialism, Christmas should be a spiritual affair that can never be upstaged or overshadowed by bigger trees, more decorations or expensive gifts. As Charlie Brown and the Grinch both find out by the end of their respective holiday experiences, the Christmas spirit prevails in all of its simplicity. The superficial images are only a façade; it's the deeper meaning of the holiday that really counts.

"It came without ribbons… it came without tags," the exasperated Grinch finally realizes. "It came… It came just the same."

"And that," Linus reminds us, "is what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."