A Charlie Browny Christmas

“I was praying for greater patience and understanding, but I quit… I was afraid I might get it.” – Lucy

I owe my mom my life, but I think I only bought her one Christmas gift as a kid. And my best friend scolded me for it. It was early December during my sophomore year of high school. Elizabeth and I were in line at Starbucks, which was decorated with snowflakes on the windows and heavily advertising the Peppermint Hot Chocolate. I saw by the register the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas. I decided to buy it for my mom; “Plus,” I said, “then I could listen to it too.” I knew that my mom would like it, and the vaguely sad jazz tunes that accompanied the mis-spirits of Charlie Brown’s winterful story would serve me the right blend of classy, pretentious rebellion that I desired. “That’s horrible!” said Elizabeth, half-laughing in shock that I couldn’t give a gift just to give a gift. I remember her expression: her mouth was opened slightly, revealing the tips of her teeth. The image of her uneasy smile is engrained into my memory, reminding me that no matter how kind I want to be, I’m a self-involved bastard. It was a smile that hid the disturbed soul of my best friend, offended by my perverse inability to give a gift with selfless, sincere Christmas cheer to my own mother.

My mother loved the gift, and I burned a copy of the soundtrack for myself. My sweetness was only in appearance.

But it would’ve been stupid to not buy it after Elizabeth’s scolding. My mom really did appreciate it. I didn’t know it at the time, but my mom basically watched A Charlie Brown Christmas every year growing up—sometimes with her mother, sometimes alone. The soundtrack, my selfish gift to her, would remind her of the same comfort that the Peanuts special gave her every Christmas. Ever since A Charlie Brown Christmas came out in 1965, it’s been a part of her Christmas tradition. Half of all the televisions in America were tuned into Charlie Brown the night that it premiered, and it’s still on at least a few times every December.

My family has watched it at least a couple times together. My mom adores Linus and the passage in Luke that he recites towards the end of the show. She probably likes Linus because she’s a lot like Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown and Linus make a really good team. Even as he looks forward to Christmas with his best friend under beautiful snowflakes, Charlie Brown says things like “I think there must be something wrong with me” and “I know I should be happy, but I’m not.” My mom once stood up in front of our church and shared that in high school her mother had a knife under her pillow. I think if you grow up with a life like that, or if you’re just as heart-wrenched as Charlie Brown, a guy like Linus helps keep you sane.

Linus is a straight shooter; he’s the wise and philosophical one; he’s safe. A Charlie Brown Christmas opens with Charlie Brown and Linus walking home in the snow. Charlie Brown complains to Linus about his wanting Christmas spirit, and says that he doesn’t feel the way he’s “supposed” to feel. Linus listens, cuddling his blanket and sucking his thumb; then he replies, “Charlie Brown, you’re the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy’s right: Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest.”

Charlie Brown smiles a total of seven times in A Charlie Brown Christmas, and each smile straightens out or just shifts to a squiggle usually after a matter of seconds. By my watch, Total Smiling Time comes out to two minutes and ten seconds, out of a 25 minute special—and a large portion of that is during the ending when they sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” His facial expressions for the rest of the special are dashes, squiggles, frowns, or just blank.

Being Charlie Browny can be depressing, but it’s hardly ever annoying or corny. Charlie Brown doesn’t ask for your sympathy, and he doesn’t ever give up. His own friends tell him “you’re hopeless” and to “do something right for a change.” And upon hearing he’s the director of the Christmas play, his own friends squeal, “Oh no! We’re doomed!” And they’re always sure to tag his first and last name at the end of their remarks, making sure he knows their scorn is for him and no one else. But it’s actually more funny than sad. You know he isn’t going to give up because he’s Charlie Brown.

For a while, I wondered what the hell was wrong with Charlie Brown that put him in so much misery. Charles M. Schulz, the cartoonist of the Peanuts and writer of the Christmas special, said that “Charlie Brown must be the one who suffers, because he’s a caricature of the average person.” But Charlie Brown lives in a comic strip, so it’s not sad; it’s funny. And at the same time, it’s actually quite encouraging, because you can count on him to be there the next day in the funnies. No matter what happens to Charlie Brown, he doesn’t give up. Being “Charlie Browny” means you’re always willing to persevere even if you feel hopeless. Schulz said that Charlie Brown is “a little bit like everyone: we all need reassurance that some people really do like us.” For whatever reason, we can’t get that little slice of hell out of us. Charlie Brown is the Charlie Browny part of all of us, every day in the strip and every increasingly commercialized Christmas season.

 “But I guess Charlie Brown is mostly me,” Schulz continued. “That’s why he often has that dumb expression on his face.” Charlie Brown and Charles Schulz are both shy, occasionally self-loathing, have fathers that are barbers, and owned spotted, white dogs (Schulz’s dog was named Spike; by coincidence, my mom also had a pet rabbit named Spike). Whenever Schulz had a bad day, he did terrible things to Charlie Brown in the comic. They shared a life together, from the first Peanuts strip in 1950 until 2000, when Schulz was dying of cancer and then had a heart attack.

For his last few months, Schulz was too sick to keep writing the comic strip. He said he felt like it was being taken away from him. He made sure no one got to continue making Peanuts comics strip after he passed. “This is when [Charlie Brown] suffers the most,” said Schulz, “when I suffer the most.”

But Charlie Brown is only one part of Schulz. Back in ’84, an interviewer asked Schulz if he was Charlie Brown. Schulz immediately answered “No, no.” Then he explained in a way that he had either rehearsed or thought about previously: “I’m a little bit of all the characters—I’m a little bit. My sarcastic side is Lucy. My wishy-washy side is Charlie Brown. My dreaming side is Snoopy, and so on. I think you have to be a little bit of all the characters if you’re going to make them at all real.” Each character brings out a little piece of personality—good or bad, but always necessary.

That’s why I like the Peanuts gang. Somehow, all the cartoony kids are real. Jonathan Franzen describes it, in his memoir The Discomfort Zone, as “the simplicity and universality of cartoon faces, the absence of Otherly particulars, that invite us to love them as we love ourselves.” The blanker the slate, the more we fill it with our own image. Collectively, we see cartoons, but individually, we see ourselves. The characters’ lives become as real as our own.

Schulz’s second wife, Jean Schulz, said that he “wanted to be authentic in everything he did.”  As a kid and until his death, Schulz loved his cartoons and wanted to be a cartoonist. He stayed true to who he was and wanted to be. As a cartoonist, he stuck with the name Charlie Brown through several characters until he created the Charlie Brown of Peanuts. In his younger years, not even being a staff sergeant in charge of a machine-gun squadron really changed the man, at least, not for long. “I thought, by golly, if that isn’t a man, I don’t know what is,” he said. “And I felt good about myself, and that lasted about eight minutes, and then I went back to where I am now.”

Schulz said, “A cartoonist is someone who has to draw the same thing day after day after day without repeating himself.” In his comic strip, Schulz used the same devices and conflicts, but the experience was always different, like Charlie Brown’s never-ending chase for the Red-Haired Girl, or his war against the kite-eating tree. The same struggles happened over and over again, with a new twist every time. Lee Mendelson, the producer of the Peanuts holiday specials, said the following:

There was a consistency. The characters always stayed the same in the strip and on the shows. And I think that’s why the strip and shows have remained popular over the years, because people know what to expect and can’t wait for it to happen again. It’s like visiting old friends.

These characters and the stories don’t really change, and the comic strip stays balanced and consistent. Whether out of tradition, culture, habit, or nature, people don’t change much either. We’re always dealing with the same kinds of problems. There’s a reason why people read Peanuts every day and watch the same specials every year. Most of us are uneasy, demanding for progress and change—but at the same, we take comfort in the things that don’t need to change because we know they are good. We know from experience that these things work. These are the sorts of things that are transformed into classics, and for many of us, they become traditions.

My mom watched A Charlie Brown Christmas every year as a kid, in elementary school and even high school. She didn’t have siblings that would watch it with her, since her twin half-sisters were about a dozen years older than her. She had a lot of time to herself. When my mom and her mom were living together in a one-bedroom apartment, they shared the bed for a while. Later, my mom slept in the living room, with her plush Snoopy keeping her company.

After the DVD for A Charlie Brown Christmas came out in 2000, my mom bought one for each of the girls who worked at her hair salon. They were young, somewhere in their twenties, from somewhere out of the country. My mom wanted them to see Christmas the way that Charlie Brown saw Christmas: a holiday commercialized by individualism and materialism. She hoped they would share their skepticism with Charlie Brown, but still have a friend like Linus to help them in their search for what Christmas is “supposed” to be. 

Of course, my mom wanted to share the famous ending: Linus’s speech about the true meaning of Christmas. At the climax of the cartoon, Charlie Brown raises his arms and shouts, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about!?” Linus answers, “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.” He walks to the center of the stage, and then (“Lights, please”) continues, reading from the Gospel of Luke:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

He finishes the speech, picks up his blanket, and then walks over to his friend and says, “And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” And then he puts his thumb back in his mouth.

No other show, no other cartoon, could do that, back then and especially now. “And everything was going along very smoothly,” said producer Lee Mendelson, “when all of a sudden Sparky [Schulz’s nickname] said, ‘We gotta have Linus read from the Bible!’” Bill Melendez, the director, thought it was risky even back then, and today, it would’ve been a joke. “We told Schulz, ‘Look, you can’t read from the Bible on network television,’” said Mendelson. “When we finished the show and watched it, Melendez and I looked at each other and I said, ‘We’ve ruined Charlie Brown.’”

If you don’t believe what Linus is saying, maybe this speech is the worst part of Charlie Brown. The special does run a little slow, and there’s only quiet action with no laugh track to keep it going. The characters were never drawn to move; they were meant for comic strips. They rely quite heavily on their words, and Linus quotes explicitly from the Christian Bible. And if the audience doesn’t listen, if they don’t want to listen, then they’re not going to like the show. At Linus’s claim of the true meaning of Christmas, the cultural icon of the Peanuts immediately becomes an icon of the Church, attempting to point towards God.

Or maybe Schulz wasn’t attempting anything. Maybe Schulz really meant that he is a little bit of all the characters—but only a little bit. And Linus is only one part of him. The conflict in Charlie Brown is the conversation between a group of kids about what Christmas really means. But it is also a conversation within the artist, the product of the Schulz’s own struggle for meaning. And Linus is a part of Schulz, representing just one of the answers that Schulz has received about the true meaning of Christmas: the birth of Jesus.

Does Schulz ever try to explain the passage from Luke? Does he claim to know what it means on the grand scale of things? Does he even know? No, no, and most likely no. Sure, he can understand the story, but he is not claiming to know what it means to have God incarnate come down to mankind. Schulz once called himself a secular humanist, but he was raised Lutheran and taught Sunday school at a Methodist church; he later said, “I don’t even know what secular humanism is.” Asked about his own theology, he answered, “The more I talk about it the more difficult it gets for me to express it and it just simply gets away from me!” His works do not provide any clear answers either; they only point to it. Linus may be the philosophical, theological part of the man, but Schulz never says that the kid that breaks down without his blanket and always has his thumb in his mouth is the kid with all the answers.

Richard Gilbert, in his book The Gospel According to Peanuts, says that Schulz preached, and “his medium… was the cartoon.” But it’s obvious that Schulz never wanted to be a preacher—he wanted to be a cartoonist. He put his life into his art; it was something he wanted to do from the age of six. Gilbert’s claim, as much as his book title, simplifies Schulz’s art as a means to preaching. But if that was so, it’d be just as bad as any art that has its (Christian, biblical) messages shoved down your throat. Schulz clearly does not do that.

A Charlie Brown Christmas doesn’t commit Christian-artistic suicide by quoting the Scripture because it asks for neither a secular nor sacred reading. Schulz’s work claims to be neither wholly secular nor wholly sacred. He simply welcomes anyone lost in the commercialization and searching for the meaning of Christmas. He does not have the answers; he is searching just as much as anyone else is. However, through his art, he takes the lead. His audience becomes his followers, though they need not agree with his ends; they simply join with his means—that is, his art. When we read Peanuts, we join the gang, sometimes as lost as Charlie Brown, other times as cheerily as Snoopy—and occasionally, we are philosophical and hopeful, like Linus.

Bill Melendez said, “[Schulz] wanted to be very straightforward and honest, and he said what he wanted to say because he was a very religious guy. When I first looked at that part of the story I told Sparky, ‘We can’t do this; it’s too religious.’” But Schulz knew what he was doing and said to Melendez, “Bill, if we don’t do it, who else can? We’re the only ones who can do it.”

Linus is just a little kid, but his character at the time of the special was thirteen years old. He’s the only character that could readily quote the Bible and actually answer Charlie Brown’s desperate outburst. It would’ve been out of character of he hadn’t.

Schulz said he felt like a Charlie Brown and wanted to be a Snoopy. And like Melendez said, Schulz clearly had a Linus in him too. I imagine Schulz, contemplating what to write for the Christmas special, and a little Linus is on his shoulder, rehearsing his recitation of Luke 2 and asking Schulz what his cue was for his big speech. Schulz proved his artistic courage by not denying this important part of who he was. Maybe we call him sentimental, naïve, misguided, or flat-out wrong, but people usually have that piece of Linus somewhere in their hearts—maybe not quoting Scripture, but at least asking questions about things much more grand than ourselves.

Consider again the different parts of what makes Peanuts as enduring as it is and the repeated themes and devices that Schulz uses: the blanket, the psychiatry booth, the football, the characters and their relationships themselves. By presenting the same problems over and over, Schulz never gives us any sure-shot solution, but he gives us his art as a way of looking for an answer. Upon hearing Linus’s speech, some feel God touching their hearts; others hear a myth. But with A Charlie Brown Christmas, Schulz doesn’t pick sides or answer the question of what Christmas truly means. After Linus’s speech, the only thing that Charlie Brown says is “Linus is right. I won’t let all this commercialism ruin my Christmas.” And then he sings a carol with his friends. If there’s any answer at all, it’s not in the words; it’s in the art. People can still appreciate Schulz’s work again and again because we don’t ever know good ends; we only know good means.

Schulz works the same way in Peanuts; he meets his reader where he’s at: believing but doubtful, hopeless but persevering, fallen but redeemed. Peanuts is all about perseverance in daily process of life of not kicking the football and not wooing the Little Red-Haired Girl. Schulz realizes he doesn’t have the answers; he just encourages us to take up our daily burdens. In face of an over-commercialized Christmas, Schulz points us towards an answer, but ultimately leaves the Gospel of Luke speak for itself; and as my mom says, “And that’s it; it doesn’t need anything else.”

Whenever I watch A Charlie Brown Christmas, or if I just hear “Christmastime is here, happiness and cheer,” it’s going to remind me of how much I don’t love my mom. As much as I want to, I don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to give back everything I owe to my mom. I mean: I won’t, because I can’t. I couldn’t even show her just for one day out of the whole year that I would do anything for her and just for her. I could say I love her, but that’s not it; it needs everything else. I owe her my whole goddamn life. Maybe there is some way to pay her back, but I don’t know what the hell it is. I feel pretty Charlie Browny about it.

For this past week and next week, I’ll have been and will be working Hit Teams: cleaning up the apartments as people are moving in and out as spring turns into summer.

It’s kinda fun. It’s one of those things that you hate starting but also hate stopping. I mean, you just wanna finish the job.

Sometimes, while we’re scrubbing away, Team Leader Tim randomly yells, which is “easier than complaining.”

He’s right. Sometimes I sing. I don’t have a lot of complaints.

[I’m gonna hit a hundred posts soon and then trash this blog probably. It’s lost its original purpose of updating friends from back home, and I’d rather just do awkward-fun video messages to them. I’ll probably start a more practical blog for my writing purposes. By practical, I mean less self-involved and ironically more self-interested.]

Yesterday was the second annual Reagan Day. Last year, I defined it as “the day I decided not to anticonform to Reagan traditions and happenings.” The biggest sacrifice for me on this day is smoking a cigar. The biggest gain is actually smoking a cigar too, with a handful of really cool guys and whatnot.

The House of Reagan has this thing, where basically, we informally (meaning, it’s just an organic thing that just happens) go around and tell a little quip about how awesome we are. And maybe sometimes it’s about how much people hate us. But it’s almost always about how much we love each other—except, it’s never in those terms; it’s in our the words of unity or brothers or our House values: loyalty, fraternity, honor. We start talking about the great things we do and the stupid things other Houses do. We act all fratty, really.

Right about now, I probably sound like a pretentious bastard, and that probably greatly diminishes the claim of our “awesomeness” and greatly augments the claim that people hate us. And I guess that’s why I didn’t seem like I fit into the House of Reagan or had no infatuations for the House of Reagan—cuz sounding like a pretentious bastard is probably near the top of my to-intentionally-not-do list.

For that reason, and for the fact that some rebellious nature in me wants to be a badass among badasses, I sometimes hold back from the House. But it’s not exactly a good thing. It’s a me-thing; sometimes it’s good, but sometimes it’s not. People realize I’m kinda off to the side or whatever. People want to be together, and I just wanna do my own thing. And that’s why Reagan Day exists—it’s a day of exceptions and compromises and traditions and community. It’s a Reagan Day that’s “for Alex” or worse, “Alex’s Reagan Day”—but the point is that it’s nothing about me. It’s about what I think about myself and realizing I’m a part of a community. It’s actually quite humbling; it’s a dying to live sort of thing. It’s about the camaraderie—which is as difficult to find as it is to spell.

So I had lunch with Matt, David, and Josh, and I announced to them I would take the Oath for the House; that act alone deserves its own essay. And then I played pool, no matter how embarrassingly bad I am at it. And then I smoked a cigar with the guys, even though I have vague feelings against smoking.

And even a guy in the House named Mark smoked for the first time, just like I did last year. He didn’t like it and didn’t finish the cigar. But he was still glad he hung out, and specifically said that he enjoyed the camaraderie about it. And that’s why we were all there anyways. Just to promise to be there for each other. I mean, some of these guys have went through hell, and not one of them really thinks that who they are or what they’ve done with their lives is awesome. They really just appreciate how great it is that they can be together with the House.

I woke up to Adam’s alarm and picked it up for him and tossed it at him while he was still trying to sleep.

Then I got ready for school and biked my five miles to Midtown. Modern Philosophy: I raised my hand to talk about the infinitude of God, but didn’t get called on and the teacher basically answered my question as I had my hand raised. Don’t ever your raise your hand till someone is done talking. Duh. I hardly ever raise my hand, but I guess I forgot that rule.

Then I worked on some edits for a music review for my portfolio for Cultural Criticism. I almost lost the file as I was moving it around my flash drive and whatever.

I was trying to email back Culver City News about interning (I know; terrible idea; but it’s better than nothing, and who knows, maybe it’s not so bad), but I had to rush over to meet with Andrea. She was gonna tell me about my new job for next year. Super happy I got hired. Dream come true. I know: I don’t have big dreams. But I totes scored: TAing for Dr. Jackson.

Then I biked down two miles to the LES and went to North Dumplings with Nathan. Finally got to hang out with that guy. He’s gonna be on Exec Team with next year. It’ll be crazy. It’ll be really good. It’s gonna tire me out. It’s gonna force me to be an extrovert, at least, occasionally pretend to be.

Then I biked back to school. Another two miles. I hung out with Matt and Tim at the cafe. They’re hilarious. Nuff said.

But really I just wanted to give Nikki her edits back. Plus, I had to bike to the Met, which is Uptown. It turned out to be a really fun ride. Four miles. The streets are actually smooth there. And there’s traffic. And people. So you can pass everybody up and feel like a boss.

The Museum was cool. I think I was laughing and cracking jokes too much—it was kinda rude to our teacher giving us the tour. But I don’t know. It’s a Friday night. I don’t know what he’d expect. I forgot my helmet on my way out. I had to go back to coat check. But I only wasted a couple minutes of my life. Eight miles later, I still beat my friends home, who took the train. Twenty-one mile day. Biking is a lot of fun.