Can You Play Jingle Bells?

There's an extraordinary lack of momentum in 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas. That famous Vince Guaraldi score is so good, so chill. The special's like a childhood equivalent of a circle of barflies gathering in the local tavern for the holiday.

Holiday specials tend to have plots striving for cosmic significance or grand absurdity. All of the problems the characters face in A Charlie Brown Christmas are firmly locked in childhood. Sally's desire for money, Lucy's desire for real estate, even Charlie Brown's desire to know the meaning of Christmas seem impossibly isolated in the childhood experience.

There's supposed to be a contrast between Charlie Brown's anti-commericalism (ironically in a special paid for by Coca-Cola) and the desires of the other children. But all of their motives equally come from such a perfect sense of childhood innocence, from such a simple-hearted lack of understanding and yet perfect confidence, it ultimately boils down to witnessing a disagreement amongst kittens.

Linus' famous biblical recitation doesn't actually answer Charlie Brown's question and most children watching the special--I include myself when I was a kid, I don't know about you--didn't understand what Linus was saying. But the atmosphere of the speech, from his voice and the light echo effect, give it the effect of a magical incantation. There's a sense of something vast and real that can't be understood, even as it's of crucial importance.

Charlie Brown's young sense of spiritual void prompts him to identify the problem vaguely as "commercialism". He seems to include Snoopy's decorations in this problem, and yet it's a magnificent solution when those same decorations are used to enhance his little living tree. Of course, it's the fact that his friends were willing to help him after all that really lifts his spirits. His problems are solved because he didn't actually understand them, a fact which somehow doesn't dispel the fact that his depression is really evocative. Again, it feels like people, gathered in a bar, chilling to some light jazz, marinating in quiet camaraderie and a shared sense of not really understanding anything. Actually, it really reminds me of the lyrics to "Lush Life".

A Charlie Brown Christmas is available on AppleTV+.