Are We Doomed Like Charlie Brown To Wander In Search Of A Fading Christmas Meaning?

Some poor misguided souls view tradition with suspicion. Nothing but archaic echoes of repressive ages, they say. I, like most conservatives, view things a little differently. Tradition, properly viewed, is an inter-generational “body language,” allowing us to silently communicate with our ancestors and our own early lives, to transcend in quiet ways the barriers of time and pesky mortality. Even those traditions that, on their surface, seem silly and devoid of meaning can tell us much about the things that mattered to our ancestors. Tradition is to be embraced and pondered, not shunned or mocked.

I am a sucker for Christmas traditions in particular. Some ancient, some recent (like watching “A Christmas Story” 800 times with my wife), and some a meaningful but sad link to an American past that often seems to be slipping away.

I have watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” every year since it first aired when I was 9 years old. I cannot conceive of a Christmas season without it. It is much more than just a pleasant cartoon. In addition to the usual multi-layered brilliance of Charles Schulz, this specific show stands as a perfect snapshot of mid-century America on the cusp of transition. Of an America that was, and an America that was yet to come. Beneath its façade of humor, seasonal cheer, and tremendous Vince Guaraldi music vibrates an undercurrent of sadness, as if Schulz saw what was coming down the road and didn’t like it.

Most readers will be generally familiar with the Peanuts cartoon strip, but many may not realize it was once the best cartoon strip in the country, and one of the best of all time. The late ’60s introduction of Peppermint Patty and Woodstock symbolized the descent of the strip into relative mediocrity, but until that point it was brilliant. Into the mouths of babes were inserted the hopes, fears, and dreams of post-war adults, all done with engaging humor, grace, and wisdom. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was Schulz’s high water mark.

Charlie Brown is a masterful representation of “everyman,” and every kid. In “A Charlie Brown Christmas” our everyman wanders in sad and confused, trying to make sense of the meaning of Christmas amidst the changing and somewhat bizarre world of mid-1960s America. Charlie Brown is a perfectly normal boy, and that is his problem. The things he wants and hopes for are quite normal, but the world in which he lives is not. He is out of sync and out of step with his peers, and they react by mocking and vilifying him (“You Blockhead!” “Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest!”). All Charlie Brown wants as the show opens is a normal Christmas experience, rooted in meaning.

In his search for meaning, Charlie Brown encounters a host of obstacles that serve to confuse and depress rather than to uplift and illuminate. They’re comparable to today’s “new age” cultural changes that corrode tradition and our links to the past and replace