“A Charlie Brown Christmas” should be seen at least once a year, regardless of your religious affiliation or how you feel about the Peanuts. See, it’s about more than Charlie Brown trying to put on his little play or Snoopie being funny, or even Linus’ moving speech. The special is about Christ, God, the human spirit, faith, and most importantly, who we are as human beings.
Charlie Brown manages to find a tree that he relates to. It’s not the biggest, it’s not the prettiest, and it’s certainly not the best of the lot. The tree looks bad. But that’s the point. When Chuck originally set out, everyone wanted him to buy a nice plastic, pink tree or something that would look good. Instead, he went out and bought a real tree. Where everyone else was concerned about appearance and having the cool new thing, Charlie went against the grain, and found something that, while unimposing at first, suited him. It was a tree that everyone dismissed, that was forgotten, that didn’t belong, which is exactly how Charlie felt dealing with the commercialism of Christmas. The Christmas play he’s trying to direct is a jumbled mess, because the actors are far too concerned with their own wants to bother with those of others, especially that old blockhead Charlie Brown. His sister demands cash from Santa. Everywhere he looks, he sees a new product to buy. Finally, Linus shares with us all, the true meaning of Christmas. The true meaning of Christmas is delivered by angels to lowly shepherds watching their flock, and they are told of good news for all men. This revelation breaks Charlie Brown free from everything he’d been so concerned about and lets him really see what Christmas is all about. It is, he finds, less about the hustle and bustle, the demands of commercialism, and Santa, than it is about peace finally arriving on Earth and sharing that peace with all people. With this in mind, he picks up his symbol of uniqueness, the symbol of his soul, and walks out, leaving the people that he was so concerned about a moment ago behind. He finally breaks free from all the expectations that have been heaped on by himself and his friends, and he finally enjoys what the moment was always supposed to be about. When he broke free of what the world believed in, he brought his friends with him, so that when he was discouraged, they could lift him up, and dress the tree, clearly representative of Charlie Brown himself, up as the magnificent symbol it always could have been. Because he denied the ways of the world, he found himself free to truly be as he was.
The tree, though, represents more than just Charlie Brown. It is a symbol for various religions and faiths as well. Like the Menorah in the Hanukkah story, no one expected the tree to do much, but it served its purpose and brought light to the darkness and to the world. In the Biblical Christmas story, Christ came into the world poor and unimpressive. Throughout His life, he was slandered and attacked. And yet, His true glory was revealed when He broke the hold the world held over man. At His birth, he brought both kings from the east and poor shepherds together, as they searched for Peace. And even though some did not understand the true nature of Christ, His glory came through.
When everyone else realizes what Charlie Brown’s known all along, that the tree really is special, that things have value not for what they are, but what they can be, it is then that they are freed from the commercialism and the thinking of the world to see the true potential of not only the tree, but of Charlie Brown, and that little babe in Bethlehem. The world, they find, does not see hope and goodness, but only common sense and money. They become corrupted by it because they’ve lived in it too long. At first they don’t want to break free from what they know, because they know it’ll be difficult, but Charlie Brown and his little tree spur them on, make them think, challenge their notions of what’s important, what has value, and why those are true. Charlie Brown found his way by listening to Linus’ words, and believing that his tree was special and worthy of attention. Once he received direction, he finally had the courage to do what he had known he should’ve done all along and strike out on his own. Charlie Brown, after all, is us. He’s what we go through every year, every month, every day, where we struggle and become concerned with the wrong things, forgetting what is really important. We’re all searching for that moment when everything becomes clear, where we finally understand what the shepherds did that night when the angels spoke to them, and we can see what we couldn’t from the other side. The end, after all, is so darned hard to see during the journey. It is only afterwards that we understand that every step was important. When it finally all becomes clear, then we can see ourselves, not as the flawed, broken shells we are now, but as the people that we always could have been. The dependence on material goods for happiness is foolhardy, because the toys don’t wind up forever, and that’s what Charlie Brown struggles with. When he finally hears the message the angels bring, the news that peace is among us, that joy has finally come, his search is over. He finally understands what those words “Merry Christmas” are supposed to mean, and he realizes that everything he thought was so important, everything that he was so concerned with before, everything that prevented him from being happy, it didn’t really matter. He finally found the Peace he had been searching so earnestly for, and it set him free. I can only hope that we’re all so lucky.
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