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"Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know."

-- Lucy Van Pelt in "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

My family viewed the first broadcast of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on a tiny portable black-and-white television whose built-in rabbit ears, when fully extended, could deliver three relatively clear channels. On a good day.

It was Dec. 9, 1965.

We have seen the hapless, round-headed little kid's struggle with the holiday blues countless times since, and it never gets old.

We are not alone.

Forty-four years later, the first animated special adapted from the popular "Peanuts" comic strip remains a holiday fixture, as well-loved and anticipated every year as the Grinch or "It's a Wonderful Life" or the myriad versions of Charles Dickens' ubiquitous "A Christmas Carol."

In fact, the special now airs not only once a year, but usually twice.

As is often the case with holiday miracles, no one saw this one coming.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" was a rush job beset by technical problems, a meager budget, "artistic disagreements" and skeptical CBS network executives.

A cartoon without a laugh track?

Jazz music for a holiday children's show?

Actual children providing the characters' voices?

Those were just some of the concerns of CBS brass as the special took shape over a span of only six months, with a budget of only $150,000.

When the executives screened the finished version, scripted by "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz, they considered it a disaster; they would show it once and cut their losses.

But the droll, 30-minute gem, which aired on a Thursday night following "Gilligan's Island," was a monster hit. The special's premiere attracted a whopping 50 percent of the TV audience.

The keys to its success are familiar to fans of the beloved "Peanuts" strip.

They are also a reason for the Peanuts characters' enduring success: It was smart and authentic, even cynical, but in the end it was also sincere and big-hearted.

And the very things that the network executives feared have become the favorite reasons fans watch Charlie Brown learn the true meaning of Christmas, over and over.

In an era in which cartoons typically used adults to voice children, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" hired real children, most of them nonactors -- some of whom could not yet read.

This approach was not without its problems, especially for the child who voiced Charlie Brown's little sister Sally. Her lines had to be cued one sentence at a time and were spliced awkwardly together in the finished broadcast.

But who cares?

Even those imperfections only seem to add to the cartoon's appeal.

The voices were spot-on in pitch and tone, from Lucy to Shroeder to Pigpen to Linus.

And there has never, ever, been a better voice for Charlie Brown than Peter Robbins' plaintive monotone.

Then there was Vince Guaraldi's signature jazz soundtrack, which understandably may at first have seemed an odd match for Peanuts. But now it's linked forever to Charlie Brown and Christmas.

David Michaelis' 2007 biography, "Schulz and Peanuts," notes even Schulz's lack of affection for jazz riffs.

"On the subject of scoring and music for 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' Schulz put aside his own tastes -- indeed his prejudices -- and fortunately deferred to the producer," Michaelis writes.

"Two months later, he told a reporter, 'I think jazz is awful.' "

Now try to imagine the special without the most popular song, "Linus and Lucy" or what has become a holiday standard, "Christmas Time is Here."

Finally, there was Schulz's insistence that the special address the real meaning of Christmas head on.

That meant, in his script, that Linus would recite, for one full minute, the Gospel according to St. Luke.

"But this is an entertainment show, Sparky," executive producer Lee Mendelson said to Schulz, invoking his familiar nickname.

Mendelson fretted that the antsy network might balk or that non-Christians might be offended. But neither happened.

Schulz didn't back down.

And the moment was the most powerful in the story.

There was at least one built-in irony in the production.

The primary theme of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was its opposition to the crass commercialization of Christmas.

But it was born as a vehicle for its main sponsor, Coca-Cola. And the original version of the cartoon featured Coke prominently.

For instance, when the children are firing snowballs at cans on a fence, one of the cans is a Coke can. And in the original credits, just as the children's rendition of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is about to end, a voice-over says, "Brought to you from the people in your town who bottle Coca-Cola."

Those references have since been snipped from the version you're seeing today, but only because Coke no longer is the sponsor. But that quibble's no larger than a snowflake.

The cartoon's wit, snappy dialogue and sudden turns for touching moments caught me with my defenses down back in 1965. And a lump in my throat.

Still does.

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.