
The U.S. Postal Service will get a jump on the holiday season by dedicating its "A Charlie Brown Christmas" stamps on Thursday, October 1. The series of 10 stamps feature scenes from the perennial TV special that will celebrate its 50th anniversary this December.

Charlie Brown's dog Snoopy leads a group of kids ice skating. A minor character when the "Peanuts" comic strip began in 1950, Snoopy eventually became one of its most popular characters.

As the TV special begins Charlie Brown, here with Linus, is depressed about the overcommercialization of Christmas.

A frustrated Charlie Brown finds Snoopy decorating his doghouse for a neighborhood Christmas-display contest.

Charlie Brown watches Pigpen, his perpetually dirty classmate, build a snowman. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" first aired on CBS on December 9, 1965.

Charlie Brown searches in vain in his mailbox for a Christmas card.

Charlie Brown and Linus with a little tree chosen by Charlie Brown as a Christmas symbol for the holiday play he is directing. Although the other kids ridicule his tree at first, they come to support him.

Charlie Brown decorates his tree by the prize-winning lights on Snoopy's doghouse.

Linus is an early supporter of Charlie Brown's tree. Earlier, when Charlie Brown wonders aloud whether there's anyone who knows what Christmas is all about, Linus recites the biblical Nativity story.

By the end of the special, the entire cast has gathered to sing carols around Charlie Brown's once-forlorn sapling, which they have transformed into a festive tree.