Christmas is a hard season for so many. And the people best equipped to understand and love the hurting are often the most unwilling.
After all, why can’t people just be happy? Maybe if people just choose to be happy, they’ll forget the heaviness of reality. Maybe if they just pray a little harder and trust God a little better, everything will be merry and bright.
But any person who has experienced sorrow knows better. Sadness is not a trivial thing, and neither is joy. Grief decriers are often trite in their treatment of both.
Christmas as a holiday can inspire cynicism in the hearts of the grieving. So the religious significance of Christmas is, quite literally, a saving grace. But reconciling the commercialized secularism of the season with the heralding of Christ’s birth is difficult.
Luckily, this problem isn’t a new one. In the 1960s secularism was a growing issue.
Enter Charles M. Schulz. One film that possesses the power to redeem the Christmas season is A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). It asks a timeless question with which everyone must reckon: What’s the point of Christmas?
Charlie Brown, the central character of the Peanuts franchise, embarks on a quest to find out. Throughout the film he encounters different sources of joy during Christmas—festivity, money, presents, productivity—but cannot seem to find purpose.
Charlie Brown explains his dilemma to his friend, Linus:
I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.
Linus responds, capturing a near-perfect picture of the insensitivity of most Christmas-lovers toward people who struggle with the season:
Charlie Brown, you’re the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.
So Charlie Brown does what many individuals tend to do when they have a problem. He goes to therapy, visiting Lucy, a self-proclaimed psychiatrist, for help.
“Lucy, my trouble is Christmas,” he says, summarizing the conflict of the film. “I just don’t understand it. Instead of feeling happy, I feel sort of let down.”
Lucy diagnoses the issue. “You need involvement,” she says. She asks Charlie Brown to be the director of the Christmas play. Maybe if he accomplishes something, Christmas will become a happy season for him.
Then Lucy pivots, discussing another source of happiness during Christmas:
I know how you feel about all this Christmas business, getting depressed and all that. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want.
Maybe, Lucy posits, Christmas joy stems from material things.
But consumerism depresses Charlie Brown. He is dismayed at his own dog’s efforts to “win money, money, money” through a Christmas decorating contest. And when Charlie Brown’s little sister, Sally, asks him to write a letter in which she asks Santa for money, he exclaims at her shallowness and leaves in frustration.
There is, however, still the prospect of the Christmas play. Maybe Charlie Brown’s productiveness will bring purpose to the season.
Unfortunately, Charlie Brown’s sullen reputation precedes him. The play cast groan when he is announced as their director. “Oh, no, we’re doomed!” one member exclaims.
But the only doomed one is Charlie Brown. He quickly learns that the cast do not share his enthusiasm for a play well-performed. They are much more preoccupied with frolicking to Vince Guaraldi’s (admittedly very catchy) “Linus and Lucy” waltz.
Frustrated with the cast’s lack of cooperation, Charlie Brown exclaims, “It’s all wrong!”
He develops a solution—find a Christmas tree to set the tone. Lucy agrees. “That’s it, Charlie Brown! You get the tree. . . . Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find!” Another character echoes, “Yeah, do something right for once in your life, Charlie Brown.”
So Charlie Brown sets off with Linus to find a Christmas tree for the play. Maybe setting a festive mood is the ticket to change Charlie Brown’s inward mood. But Charlie Brown seems to know the futility of this endeavor. “I don’t know, Linus,” he says as they walk. “I just don’t know.”
The film’s commentary on the commercialization of Christmas is hilariously highlighted through the Christmas tree farm. It’s an outdoor nursery, but it’s filled with aluminum trees. Linus knocks on one and quips, “This really brings Christmas close to a person.”
The earnestness of Charlie Brown’s search for meaning is apparent. He settles on the one living Christmas tree in the entire farm. Granted, it’s hardly a tree—more like a scrap of branch with a few fragile, falling needles. But it’s real. And Charlie Brown is looking for what is real about Christmas.
“I think it needs me,” he notes. Even though he is the least joyful, Charlie Brown seems to be the only person in the film who is sensitive toward others’ needs and tries to fulfill them. The outcast person notices the outcast tree.
Though Linus protests the selection, Charlie Brown is insistent. The two bring the dying tree back to the auditorium. Unsurprisingly, the cast are furious. “You were supposed to get a good tree! Can’t you tell a good tree from a poor tree?”
The attacks turn personal. “I told you he’d goof it up. He’s not the kind you can depend on to do anything right.”
Then occurs the most accurate line of the film up to this point:
You’re hopeless, Charlie Brown.
Charlie Brown finally reckons with this. He is hopeless. He sees no purpose in Christmas, and others see no purpose in him. Material possessions haven’t brought him joy. Not even his productivity gave him happiness. He can’t do anything right, and people view him as a burden.
Charlie Brown’s frustration culminates in his desperate cry: “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”
Linus, the hero of the film, steps forward. “Sure, Charlie Brown; I can tell you what Christmas is all about.”
And what follows is the single most beautiful recitation of Luke 2. It’s a goosebump-inducing monologue. No background music to dictate the mood. No fancy effects or dramatic inflections. Simply a child announcing “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. . . . a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”
Linus finishes the passage, walks back to his friend, and gently explains, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
Charlie Brown begins to understand. He picks up the little tree and leaves, deciding to decorate the tree on his own. He skips to Snoopy’s decked-out doghouse, attaching a bauble to the tree. It bends. Charlie Brown exclaims, “Oh! Everything I touch gets ruined!” He runs off, defeated, leaving the little tree alone in the snow.
The tree is the central motif of the entire film, and with good reason. It is symbolic of Charlie Brown himself—unwanted, un-festive, unloved—but the only real thing in the midst of a Christmas-crazed world.
Unbeknownst to a devastated Charlie Brown, Linus and the rest of the gang have followed him out of the auditorium. They circle the abandoned tree, and Linus confirms the “tree-as-Charlie-Brown” metaphor. He utters a crucial message to all Christmas lovers who are frustrated with the Christmas-indifferent. His words are so profound that if viewers aren’t careful, they’ll miss the potency:
I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It’s not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.
Love is exactly what Charlie Brown needed all along. At last, his friends come to understand this. They demonstrate their love by dressing his tree, symbolically dismantling Snoopy’s over-decorated doghouse. Instead they turn their attention to what needs their care—a hopeless little tree. Then they stand around it, softly humming “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.”
Charlie Brown reemerges onscreen, dumbfounded by the sudden transformation of his tree. His friends shout, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!” And they all sing together:
Hark! the herald angels sing, / Glory to the newborn king.
Peace on Earth and mercy mild, / God and sinners reconciled.
Joyful, all ye nations, rise; / Join the triumph of the skies!
For the first time in the film, Charlie Brown joins the triumph of Christmas. The purpose he was looking for existed all along. The “good tidings of great joy” in Luke 2 are given “to all people,” Charlie Brown included. The joy was not something he needed to muster from within himself, but something external to him altogether.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is a classic for everyone’s Christmas viewing list. Its adorably delivered lines, irresistible jazz, and silly antics are something every viewer, regardless of religious beliefs, can enjoy.
But the true beauty of the film is its exploration of the meaning of Christmas. Shown from the perspective of a character disillusioned with Christmas, the film is a safe haven for anyone who struggles with the holiday season. But the film not only offers comfort for those who are sad. It also presents a challenge to Christmas lovers who encounter those who are sad: “bear each other’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).
Ultimately, the film’s message is love: a call to love those who need it, and a reminder that Love is a Person—Jesus Christ. And that Person is the purpose of Christmas. A Charlie Brown Christmas is a comfort film, a saving grace for both Christmas lovers and the Christmas-indifferent. It is sure to deliver good tidings and great joy to all who watch.
To you and yours—Merry Christmas from Light After Rain.
If you enjoyed this review, you might enjoy this opinion article on the film, which dives more deeply into historical context. Be sure to check out my other film reviews as well!