It’s a symbol of what is needed in this season.

Linus carries a blue blanket – it’s his safety net. He doesn’t think he can function without it.

I have some blue blankets I hang onto, and I don’t even realize it. Sam is one. Sometimes I think I cannot function without him. My cell phone is another. My memory of bad times in my life, of wrongs committed against me and by me. My need for recognition and gratitude from others. My worries about my grandchildren. My obsession with knowing the news. My fear of many unknowns at the end of this year. I cling to these things and don’t realize how they permeate my life.

But in Linus’ recitation of Luke 2, he drops his blanket as soon as he says, “Fear not.”

It’s the 1965 way to “mic drop.”

Complete sermon with one blue blanket drop.

However, Linus is related to me, because he ends his speech and picks that blanket back up, completely forgetting the point of his own message and God’s call to “fear not.”

But…

At the end of the best Christmas cartoon ever, Linus does the best thing with that blue blanket safety net.

He lets go of it once more, and this time, he wraps it around the tree,  kind of like laying it at the foot of the cross.

I am grateful for simple lessons that are pretty profound.

I am grateful for Charles Schulz and the way he could weave a sermon into a cartoon.

And I am grateful for our Christmas tree that is now going to remind me to leave it all at the foot of the cross.