25 Days of Christmas Movies: Day 5 A Charlie Brown Christmas

I unfortunately didn't have the time today to do a full-length feature film but instead watched one that is as synonymous with Christmas for me as a lighted tree and the power going out at my grandmother's house once everything got plugged in in the kitchen: A Charlie Brown Christmas.

I was raised by a huge Charles Schulz fan so if there was a Peanuts special for a holiday odds were pretty good that we watched it. Halloween isn't Halloween without the wait for the Great Pumpkin and Snoopy getting into a firefight with red baron. Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without Charlie Brown plating up toast and popcorn for his friends. And Christmas just isn't Christmas without Linus explaining the meaning of it--I'm not religious by any stretch of the imagination but there is something ethereal, almost spiritual about his little soliloquy--and a droopy tree being given new life thanks to the power of childlike wonderment.

I, like the titular character, am also fed up with capitalism permeating everything. Maybe that is part of my issue with lack of holiday spirit. It is hard to find when every feeling you had as a kid, when that joy and wonder was ever-present this time of year, is now commodified and turned into something that you can almost buy but never really capture. What the thing that I buy represents is always beyond my grasp and that feeling that is there is hollow and fleeting, a cheap imitation of what once was. 

Maybe when I lost religion is when I lost that spirit. A thoroughly depressing thought as I am certain my religious belief will never rekindle, so if it is tied to holiday spirit then I am s-c-r-e-w-e-d, screwed, and I should just give up Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future and let Christmas become a day filled with laughter and good food, but little else. Let December become the month that the days get darker and colder but signify nothing beyond the yearly lightening of the boot in your neck. All for it to press down the harder come January 2nd.

Perhaps that is what being an adult is. But I've been able to retain my childlike imagination and sense of wonder for other things. So why not this?

My search for answers continues. Let us hope it is not vain.

As you can see, my search for holiday spirit is going great.

Anyway, I give this film 10/10 Snoopy's Doghouse Decorations (which are unjustly stolen to support Charlie Brown's sad tree).

See you tomorrow where the film will be Elf. Starring Will Ferrell and directed by one of my favorites, Jon Favreau.

JK