Something that is interesting to contemplate: many of the Christmas animated specials on tv are much, much older than the kids watching them (older, in some cases, than their parents - and in some families, perhaps even older than the grandparents, if people had their kids young).
The best (in my opinion, and you're welcome to quietly disagree but I will fight you if you say otherwise) is "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
This special was made in 1964. Five years before I was born, and I'm pretty long in the tooth, especially to be watching animated specials.
But it is, in fact, quite - ahem - special. It shows some of Schulz' uncompromising nature on these things. I've read that Charles Schulz - who was a fairly devout Christian - insisted upon the Luke 2 passage being read in the special. (And it's still there, today. I watched the special a couple weeks ago when it re-ran, and there it was. And I teared up, as I always have as an adult at it).
It's not the most polished animation ever. In fact, some of the expressions, some of the head shapes, are weird and awkward. They hadn't figured out how to turn a flat comic-strip figure into a cartoon character that was supposed to give a hint of 3-D-ness. (The recent Peanuts movie was much better at that).
And also, the dialog: the kids are outright mean to poor Charlie Brown. (Well, except for Linus, who I would argue is perhaps the most complex and interesting of the kids, and I often imagine that if there was an alternate universe where these kids grew up, Linus would turn out to be a minister or a counselor....). And Charlie, himself - these days, he'd have been written up in school for his sadness, and possibly have been on medication.
But, these characters really aren't children, are they? Aren't they adult thoughts and attitudes put into the bodies of children, in order that we maybe see some adult follies?
Lucy, who is needy, who wants Schroeder to notice her and to be told she's pretty (she tells herself she is).
Sally, who just wants stuff, gifts, things ("...and send as many as possible") showing the sheer avarice that some people can get up to.
Schroeder, who is fairly monomaniacally focused on one thing - his music - and who won't brook advice from others (his sarcastic, toy-piano, one-finger version of Jingle Bells, when Lucy keeps making suggestions).
Shermy - who I don't think appears in any later cartoons - as the person who is disappointed with his lot ("Every year it's the same thing: a shepherd")
And on, and on. (Violet is mean, a real queen bee. Patty is also mean but less so - she seems to be a bit of a follower. Perhaps Silver Spoon to Violet's Diamond Tiara, if I may cross the cartoon streams a little).
But Charlie Brown: instead of being happy and uplifted by the promise of Christmas, or the thought of getting gifts, or even being out of school for a couple weeks, he feels let down. It's actually kind of alarming to listen to the dialog (or read the script - and there are scripts out there) without the cartoon, it really is kind of depressing dialog.
But then again: isn't that a lot of us? We have things no king of the 1500s could even have dreamed of. Those of us of modest means by today's "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" standards still have warmer homes, better and more abundant food, and many other unimaginable blessings (dental care! vaccinations! Clean water to drink and hot water to bathe in!) for people even five or six generations ago. And yet, we are not happy. I fall into this trap myself: I get my head too far into my work. Or I look at the people who do wrong and seem to prosper (no shortage of those these days) and wonder if maybe being a person with morals is just a fancier way of saying "chump." Or I see people who are doing financially better than I am, or who seem better at sloughing off their work, or whatever, and I feel discontented.
And really - a while back, I referenced "A Mighty Fortress" and the line about "And though this world/ with devils filled/ should threaten to undo us" and noted that in my case, the "undoing" is more about giving up hope or being ungrateful for the million things I do have because it seems I can only see the five I don't....and that sort of ingratitude is its own sort of sin, at least, in some theologian's eyes.
But it seems a very common one, and that kind of dissatisfaction is common enough that Charlie Brown is made to feel it.
And yet. And yet, there is a redemption - towards the end of the movie, when Charlie runs out of the auditorium in frustration, the kids gather up the tiny, pathetic tree he chose (it was the only "real" one on the lot, apparently, and it "seemed to need him"). And they decorate it, using decorations taken from Snoopy's prize-winning display....and it turns out, as one of them says, "It's not such a bad little tree after all."
And really, isn't that our lives? When we stop and LOOK at what we have, or when we take a breath long enough to, I don't know, let the little kid who ran up to us at church hug our leg, or pet a friend's dog....that life and what we have isn't so bad, after all?
And I think yeah, there are those universal themes there. Schulz, even though he was neither really a theologian nor a psychologist, I think he understood human nature better than many degreed versions of either, and was able to show it in the simple morality plays of his comic strips.
(I read Peanuts extensively as a child. I've talked before about how my mom had to explain to six-year-old me what "sarcasm" was from one of the strips, and how I had the books that my parents had owned when they were grad students - compilations of the old, early 1960s era strips).
But I think that's why the special has lasted, despite the sometimes-clunky animation and the fact that there are things in it (corded phones! Christmas tree lots with aluminum trees!) that kids today might not be familiar with at all.
A couple years ago, someone at Think Christian wrote a piece about the persistence of the show, and I agree with many of their points: Why 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' Still Resonates 50 Years Later.
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