Of All the Charlie Browns In The World, You're The Charlie Browniest

My other Christmas related post (this was the first) is about my favorite Christmas music ever. It probably won’t be too surprising that it’s the soundtrack to the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. Not only is it intensely nostalgic, reminding me of so many winters watching the show as a kid, but it, alone among all the Christmas music I can think of, captures the grey, mixed feelings that is an unavoidable part of the holiday and of winter in general.

On a first pass, Christmas is a time of seeing family and giving gifts, of “holiday cheer” (I think it’s clear by now that what I’m talking about is the secular celebration of Christmas). And yet, there’s a flip side to that: the extreme commercialism and consumerism, the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of being out of place, of not getting invited to Christmas parties, that sense of forced cheer. The fact that it happens during the cold and short days of winter only intensifies everything. This is what the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack says in spades. To listen to it is to become Charlie Brown trudging through the snow, wondering why no one has sent him a Christmas card and yearning for something deeper from the season than pink, plastic trees. Now, my attitude doesn’t descend to his level of despair. Yes, I go to parties and get and give gifts and feel authentically cheerful. But, not all the time. The bitter cold, the disappointment when you get a gift you don’t really want, the sense, when it’s all over: “is that all there is?” It's all inevitable. A Charlie Brown Christmas is about reflecting on this. It reminds me that the holiday can sometimes get you feeling a bit down precisely when it’s supposed to pick you up. It expresses that sentiment back to you and becomes your companion in melancholy.

(NPR has done a few reports on the soundtrack over the years. They're good and they are here and here.)