Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
Why A Charlie Brown Christmas Still Matters
A single moment—Linus saying “fear not” and letting his blanket fall—can change how we carry the season. We dive into why A Charlie Brown Christmas still resonates: the tender Vince Guaraldi score, Charles Schulz’s bold insistence on the Nativity, and the surprising power of small, loving choices. This isn’t nostalgia for its own sake; it’s a guide to re-centering our hearts when the holidays amplify both joy and anxiety.
We share the backstory of Schulz negotiating with network executives to include the birth of Jesus, and why that choice gave the special its staying power.
You’ll hear practical ways to live “fear not” in a loud season: honest inventory of your modern blankets, small daily rhythms that return you to peace, and simple acts of service that turn comfort outward. Along the way, we embrace the lasting themes that make the special a classic—hope for all people, courage born from presence, and the reminder that real security won’t come from shiny things. If you’ve ever felt the pressure to perform a perfect holiday, this conversation offers a gentler way through: trust more, cling less, and let love do its steadying work.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mack. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and let me help you start your day right. A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in December of 1965. I was seven years old at the time, and so I grew up with this Christmas tradition of watching a Charlie Brown's Christmas every single year, and I still enjoy it almost as much as I did back when I was seven years old. A Charlie Brown's Christmas is unique. One of the most notable things is that its music is different than you hear on all of the other Christmas specials. Vince Giraldi was a genius putting this music together for Charlie Brown. I love it. And it's part of what sets Charlie Brown's Christmas apart. But there's something even greater that makes Charlie Brown's Christmas unique. You see, when Charles Schultz was asked to create a Christmas special for CBS, he agreed but with one requirement, that they allow him to include the story of the birth of Jesus. The TV executives were not exactly thrilled by this requirement, but they eventually agreed because Schultz was insistent. I came across a short article by Kevin Pentlin that I think you will enjoy. It talks about Linus and his blanket and the answer that Linus has for Charlie Brown's question. Pentlin said, Linus is a child who seems to have some insecurity as he carries a security blanket with him at all times. The highlight of the story is Charlie Brown walking onto the center of the stage, frustrated because the play is not coming together, and he shouts out, Can anybody tell me what Christmas is all about? Linus steps forward and tells Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about. He recites the Christmas story as it's recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Linus gets to the portion in Luke chapter two, verse ten, where he says, And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people. And as Linus says the words fear not, he drops his blanket. It may seem like an innocent moment, but Linus delivers a powerful reminder of the true meaning of Christmas. We are to fear not. We don't need to rely on material things for security. We have God with us, Emmanuel, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the true meaning of Christmas. Pentlin says a while back, someone informed me indignantly so that Linus picks up his blanket at the end of the speech, so my interpretation must be wrong. Well he was right. Linus does pick up his blanket at the end of the speech. However, he drops it again later. Standing amid big, bright, colorful, shiny artificial trees, Charlie Brown chose the least of these, a little wooden tree with just a few branches. Shortly thereafter, Linus uses his blanket to wrap around the base of the tree and says maybe it just needs a little love. In that moment, the tree awakens, standing tall and firm. A reminder that no matter who we are or how many mistakes we've made, a little love can make all the difference. Let's take a lesson from Linus this year. Let us work on fearing not and trusting God more. He came and was born in that manger so that we might have life and have it to the full. He came to give us a hope and a future. He came to help us overcome everything that the enemy throws at us, so that we can live without fear. And we can let go of those temporal things that we sometimes want to hang on to because we think that they give us security. Our true security can only come from our relationship with Christ. And Christmas is a tremendous reminder of that. Have a great day, my friends, and just for the fun of it, I'm going to leave you with a little bit of the music from Charlie Brown Christmas.
