Created by Charles M. Schulz in 1966, this glorious Emmy-nominated Halloween special celebrates its 50^th anniversary this October 27^th. If you haven’t watched this twenty-five-minute classic adventure, it follows three fun storylines with appearances from the entire Peanuts gang. This beloved special features many iconic peanuts moments and has quite a following of fans that believe in The Great Pumpkin. To celebrate this specials’ 50^th anniversary, more than 80 farms nationwide have created Peanuts-themed corn mazes featuring all the characters and maybe even an appearance by The Great Pumpkin. If you are a pumpkin-obsessed fall fan like myself, you should be aware of all the ways to celebrate The Great Pumpkin.

In case you weren’t aware, this holiday TV special begins with the first time Lucy ever pulled the football away from Charlie Brown in animation. This special also features the iconic Charlie Brown line: “I got a rock.” In fact, after this special aired, for years people everywhere sent bags and boxes of Halloween Candy for Charlie Brown to both Charles Schulz’s studio and CBS. In addition, during the special, while the gang parties at Violet’s Halloween party and Linus and Sally wait for The Great Pumpkin, Snoopy has his own adventure as a WWI flying ace fighting the notorious Red Baron. This was the first time Snoopy appeared as the flying ace in animation as well.

Personally, Linus’s storyline is my favorite part of this entire holiday special because of his steadfast belief in The Great Pumpkin. Even though Linus just got confused about the traditional holiday figures, Linus refuses to listen to everybody’s disbelief and annually writes The Great Pumpkin a letter and waits for him to arrive in the local pumpkin patch. Linus’s continual belief in an imaginary holiday figure, that just happens to be a giant pumpkin who brings presents to good children, always brings me joy during the fall.

If you happened to miss the first airing of this special on ABC and you don’t own the DVD you can watch it again when ABC airs the full-length version on October 28^th. So in the meantime, in honor of the 50^th anniversary visit one of the pumpkin patches, hand out rocks on Halloween, sing some pumpkin carols, eat some pumpkin, or write your own letter to The Great Pumpkin. Since I believe in The Great Pumpkin, I eagerly await his arrival and ponder what cool presents I’ll receive. Happy Halloween!