The holiday season isn’t going to be the same thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. We’ll be celebrating with our extended family via Zoom and doing most of our shopping online instead of in-store Black Friday sales. 

As if there weren’t already enough changes, then we found out that Apple TV+ had exclusive rights to the Peanuts holiday specials including “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” That would mean that the Peanuts classics most likely wouldn’t air on broadcast TV for the first time since the 1960s.

It just wouldn’t be the holidays without watching Charlie Brown and Snoopy serve their friends popcorn and toast for Thanksgiving and listen to Linus explain to Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about. A future without the classic holiday specials on broadcast TV seemed like possibly more than we could handle.

Thankfully, Apple has listened to the exasperated pleas on social media, and they have cut a deal with PBS to allow the the Thanksgiving and Christmas specials to air on TV for free after all. You can watch Charlie Brown and his friends on your local PBS station, and the broadcasts will be ad-free. 

“A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is set to air on PBS November 22 at 7:30pm/6:30pm Central time. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is scheduled to air on PBS December 13 at the same time, 7:30pm/6:30pm Central time.

If you already have plans during those times, you can still watch the holiday specials for free, but you’ll need to stream them on Apple TV+. The streaming service will have windows of time in which these Peanuts classics will be available for free. The Thanksgiving special will be free November 25-27, and the Christmas special will be free from December 11-13.

Are you going to watch the Peanuts holiday specials on PBS or on Apple TV+?