12 Days of Christmas Movies: Day 1

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965)

(Already a day off from this little project ... having sporadic internet access until 2009 sucks!)

"Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know."

There is a mere handful of truly meaningful Christmas films and specials that even the most cynical would have to laud as poignant and touching, and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" has to take its place among those. Everything about this film is iconic: The sickly tree, the discussion of the holiday’s commercialization, the speech by Linus about the meaning of Christmas at the crux of the film (despite the irony that this is the same kid that waits ever vigilantly for the Great Pumpkin every Hallow’s Eve). While other holiday specials were content to explore or expand the other mythologies of Santa, Rudolph or Frosty the Snowman, this is pretty heady stuff, where we see Charlie Brown questioning his faith in Christmas, and by extension the basic tenets of family and religion. Not a bad lesson to pick up from a hydrocephalic that can’t learn from experience, i.e. the whole football kicking thing.