You couldn’t blame the leaders of Orlando Family Stage if they kicked up their heels and threw back their heads with a howl to join Snoopy in the cartoon beagle’s flamboyantly happy dance.

The theater, which specializes in productions for young audiences and their families, has created not one but two productions of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” this year — one for its own stage in Loch Haven Park, north of downtown, and one that has embarked on a national tour.

In a year when government funding for arts nonprofits has taken a hit, the dual revenue stream from good ol’ Charlie Brown is like, well, a Christmas miracle.

“This is not an easy time, so to be able to find ways to supplement and complement funding sources, that’s what we have to do. It’s essential for us,” said Orlando Family Stage artistic director Jeffrey Revels. “It’s extremely important, especially with the growth potential.”

Orlando Family Stage first partnered with Gershwin Entertainment Corp. last year to present an adaptation of the beloved TV special in which Charles M. Schulz’s preternaturally wise Peanuts gang learns the true meaning of Christmas.

“It was the best-selling show financially for us of all time,” said Revels. “And we are on pace to beat that this year.”

The touring production also did well, so Orlando Family Stage upped its involvement in that endeavor.

“We 100% have stepped up as a producer,” Revels said. Beyond casting the show — 11 actors for the local production and 11 more for the tour — and rehearsing both casts here, this year Orlando Family Stage also took on increased responsibility for costume and prop maintenance for the touring show.

“We built extra sad little Charlie Brown trees,” in case a mishap damages one on the road, Revels gave as an example. Orlando Family Stage also created multiple Snoopy costumes to make it easier to keep up with laundry while on tour. The theater refreshed the sets, which it designed and created in 2024.

Orlando Family Stage is also helping theaters across the country market the show when possible. The tour stops at such cities as Cincinnati; Brooklyn, New York; Washington, D.C.; Denver; Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Revels hopes the success of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” will lead to future partnerships with Gershwin Entertainment — and additional revenue streams.

“We want this to be a pilot for other work we can create together,” he said.

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For those who saw the show last year, Revels has tweaked some elements, most notably the featured music. He replaced sacred music sung before Linus reads the Nativity story to the other children with secular holiday songs — emphasizing that the kids don’t grasp the meaning of Christmas until philosophical Linus has his biblical moment in the spotlight.

“I just felt like we weren’t setting up Linus’s big moment as we should,” Revels said. Now, singing “Joy to the World” and more verses of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” after the telling of the Christmas story shows that “the kids realize what Christmas is all about.”

Revels said this year’s audience so far is a mix of returning patrons and newbies. He’s especially pleased to see the show attract theatergoers of all ages.

“This is truly multigenerational theater,” he said. “Parents and grandparents get to see the children experience the story they love.”

He’s also happy to be staging the show in a momentous year for the Peanuts, which debuted as a newspaper comic strip on Oct. 2, 1950. Not only is it the 75th anniversary of the franchise, but it is the 60th anniversary of the televised cartoon that inspired the stage show. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” premiered on CBS-TV on Dec. 9, 1965 — cementing the Peanuts’ place in American pop culture for generations.

“We get to be, in a small way, a steward of that legacy,” Revels said. “It’s quite an honor. I don’t take that lightly at all.”

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‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’