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Charles Schulz is probably on every cartoonist's list of influences, and he's certainly on mine. Peanuts has had an enormous impact on our culture. Everyone knows Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and we all understand their plight. We were all children once. We've all had those same worries and disappointments, and the same joys and triumphs. As a side note, I think it's telling that newspapers still pay to run reruns of Peanuts every day (under the banner "Classic Peanuts"), when they're normally not happy to run reruns of any comic strip.
Schulz would sometimes inject religion into his strips, usually coming out of the mouth of Linus. I imagine Linus grew up to be a priest or pastor of some sort. Here, he reads the Christmas story from Luke, though I'm not sure which English translation he's using.
Now, as a theist and Christian, I do believe that it's important for us, as Christians, to remember Jesus at Christmastime and try our best to make Him the focus of our Christmas celebrations. That said, I think there's still some room for Santa Claus, so I would have to slightly disagree with Linus here. It's a lovely comic strip nonetheless.