CAILLEY:

Here’s the thing. I love Christmas. It may even be my favorite time of the year. I also love “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” It’s a great American tradition created by a great American, God bless him. But “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” is better on the sheer concept that “Peanuts” is a comic strip, therefore, humor is key. On those grounds, “Great Pumpkin” is the better of these holiday classics.

Who can forget the timeless scenes with Charlie Brown getting the football pulled away from him by Lucy, cutting way too many holes in his ghost costume and getting a rock instead of candy? “Peanuts” is synonymous with Charlie Brown getting fucked over, and it doesn’t get any better than “Great Pumpkin.”

What hilarious scenes from “Charlie Brown Christmas” come straight to mind? That’s right, none. What do come to mind are timeless, sentimental scenes. These are great, and I like to grab a blanket, nuzzle up to some hot chocolate and get sentimental every now and then, but when it comes to “Peanuts,” I’d rather have funny.

“Great Pumpkin” is also a far more original concept. You can get nativity scenes and carols with any Christmas special, but where else can you get the Great Pumpkin? Sure it may not really exist, but then again, neither does Santa Claus. At least Linus has the imagination to go outside the box, just like Charles Schulz when he came up with this unique concept for a holiday special.

What also makes the “Great Pumpkin” so great is that it’s far more accessible. Most Americans celebrate Halloween in some way, but not everybody celebrates Christmas. In fact, even if you don’t celebrate Halloween you can still enjoy and understand the humor of the “Great Pumpkin.”

The same can’t be said for “Charlie Brown Christmas.” There is no “Charlie Brown Hanukkah” or “Charlie Brown Kwanzaa.” Although it’s probably for the best — judging from they way he screws everything else up, Charlie Brown wouldn’t be able to spin a dreidel — it’s a shame that some kids won’t get to take part in this holiday classic. The same can’t be said for the “Great Pumpkin.”

To be fair, both “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” are great and they are both certainly better than the dreadful “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” but when it comes to an all-around good time, I’ll sing pumpkin carols with Linus.

TONY:

You know what? Thanksgiving really gets the shaft.

As soon as Halloween ends, the Christmas decorations invade the vacant space devil horns and slutty bumblebee costumes left behind, and Thanksgiving is just the bridge to cross between fall and winter.

So, sorry Thanksgiving, but we’re going to do it again. And we’re going to do it big, because we’ve had this battle planned out for weeks in advance. In the debate between two of the biggest holidays, which Charlie Brown special takes the cake?

Tony, you don’t stand a chance. Without a doubt, it’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

See, within seconds of hearing those iconic voices singing “Christmas Time is Here,” I’m lost in a beautiful world of Christmas. Not even the prospect of spirit-shattering finals can invade the wonderful bubble of childhood memories I’m lost in.

That’s where you’ve lost the battle and the war, Tony. Vince Guaraldi’s score has infused snazzy jazz into the Charlie Brown franchise as a whole, but the Christmas special is just classic. The whole soundtrack is just as Christmas as Santa Claus and presents. You can’t really top it.

But lets move on to the plot. “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” tells the story of Linus who gets stood up on a metaphorical date with the Great Pumpkin. Oh, and Charlie Brown gets the football pulled away yet again. The end.

Honestly, who the hell wants to watch that? Sure, you might try to say the Halloween special represents the perpetual optimism of a child before life inevitably crushes his or her spirit and leaves behind a hollow, sarcastic shell of the person they used to be, but that’s just nonsense anyway, right?

Also, who wants to watch Linus’ slow descent into insanty? Given that no one knows who or what the Great Pumpkin is, we might just be watching Charles Schultz’ version of “Donnie Darko,” and that’s just a scary thought.

Thankfully for our perceptions of Linus’ sanity, none of that Great Pumpkin nonsense is uttered in the Christmas special. Quite the contrary — Linus is the one character in the Christmas special who isn’t absolutely batshit crazy. With Lucy ranting about being the queen in the Christmas pageant, Schroeder going nuts about playing “Jingle Bells” to Lucy’s liking and Charlie Brown’s mid-childhood crisis about the meaning of Christmas, Linus is the only calm guy in the whole damn show.

And the scene where he takes the stage to tell Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about is enough to move even me — and I’m the biggest heathen I know.

And that’s why the Christmas special is infinitely better than the Halloween special, Tony Lewis.