“We’ve got another holiday to worry about, it seems Thanksgiving Day is upon us!” Charlie Brown says, standing by his mailbox.

His little sister, Sally, screams to the sky: “I haven’t even finished eating all my Halloween candy!”

Linus, cuddling his blanket, states matter-of-factly: “Sally, Thanksgiving is a very important holiday. Ours was the first country in the world to make a national holiday to give thanks.”

(Sally then exclaims, to Linus’s chagrin, “Isn’t he the cutest thing?”)

This, of course, is a conversation held between the beloved characters of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts in “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” The TV special, which debuted in 1973, is as charming now as it ever was. Backed by the indomitable Vince Guaraldi jazz trio, the short film embodies the heart of the holiday.

Linus is right — Thanksgiving is a very important holiday and a distinctly American one at that. (Thanks, Sarah Josepha Hale and Abraham Lincoln!)

After Peppermint Patty invites herself (and Marcie and Franklin) over to Charlie Brown’s for Thanksgiving dinner, Charlie and Snoopy scramble to prepare a meal for their friends.

For their backyard Thanksgiving feast, the children sit in mismatched chairs around a ping-pong table covered in a sheet. (The indomitable Snoopy and Woodstock were responsible for setup.)

As Snoopy brings out the main course — buttered toast, popcorn, and jelly beans — Peppermint Patty asks, “It’s Thanksgiving, you know. Before we’re served, shouldn’t we say grace?”

Linus takes on the sacred task and offers a “historical” prayer, which he attributes to Elder William Brewster: “We thank God for our homes, our food, and our safety in our new land, and we thank God for the opportunity to create a new world for freedom and justice” — Peppermint Patty interjects — “Amen!”

While nowadays around Thanksgiving we are inundated with narratives of wicked white colonizers and barbaric Christian nationalists, the childlike gratitude of Linus is a healthy reminder of the incredible gift it is to be an American.

This Thanksgiving, I will be giving thanks for buttered toast, for the Midwestern genius of Charles Schulz — and for this great American project.