A Charlie Brown Christmas

I look forward to seeing A Charlie Brown Christmas every year and if I miss it I’m not a happy camper. In my opinion it is the sweetest and most real of all the TV Christmas specials. Charles Shulz just had such a way of capturing the wonder and essence of childhood.

I am not a religious person but I appreciate the traditions of Christmas. Many of our traditions in the West are relatively new and came from Germany and other parts of Europe. The idea of the Christmas dinner and the tree was not around before the Victorian era in England. I haven’t done enough research to know what the celebrations were like before that. I enjoy the Christmas specials and many of the religious songs. When I was a child I looked forward to going to church on Christmas just to have the chance to sing these great songs.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is a 30 minute Peanuts cartoon; it first aired in 1965 on CBS in the US and now airs yearly on ABC.

This is the opening two minutes of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  It starts with Charlie Brown telling Linus that Christmas depresses him. “Of all the Charlie Brown’s in the world, you are the Charlie Browniest.”

The children, and Snoopy, are excited about Christmas and let the music take them away.  I find I notice and concentrate on a different character every time I see it. This really captures the excitement and jubilation children feel close to Christmastime.

Linus explains to Charlie Brown and the other children what Christmas is really all about.  This speech never fails to touch me. I’m sure it’s the simplicity of the young boy’s voice and the fact that Linus is my favourite Peanuts character.

In her never ending flirting with Schroeder, Lucy asks him to play Jingle Bells; “You know.The one about Santa Claus and ho ho ho and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls?”. This is one of my favourite parts of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Charlie Brown takes his little tree that everyone laughed at back home and tries to decorate it.  When he sees Snoopy’s doghouse won 1^st prize in a decorating contest he gets frustrated about how commercial Christmas has become. He gives up in exasperation after he thinks he killed the tree after hanging a bulb on it but the other children come along and finish decorating it.

If you have never seen A Charlie Brown Christmas you owe it to yourself and your children to either watch it on TV or buy a copy. It will become a Christmas tradition in your home.