Don’t you love watching the animated short A Charlie Brown Christmas? For my family, nothing hollers “December!” more invitationally than Vince Guaraldi’s piano music and Snoopy skating across a pond.

Made back in the Late Jurassic period (1965), that little movie is more than a nostalgic seasonal ritual. Its message remains applicable and relevant to our high-tech / high-velocity lives, even in the Covid-world of 2020. And besides being hilarious, deliciously ironic, and heart-warming without a cringe-factor, A Charlie Brown Christmas is theologically profound. Indeed, I’d argue that the Peanuts gang offer in half an hour what equates to a seminary course’s worth of wisdom. In particular, Charlie Brown and company do a deep dive into the nature and meaning of gifts… gifts at Christmas time in particular, but also gifts as symptoms of both Giver and receivers. 

Recall: Charlie Brown begins with a bad case of holiday blues. He’s sad, and he’s confused. Why does the Christmas season make him feel morose? His pal Lucy, self-appointed Christmas Queen and amateur psychiatrist, fails to diagnose his holiday melancholy but offers treatment nonetheless. Lucy maintains that “involvement” is the only way to feel better. (The “involvement” she has in mind serves her own agenda and will put Charlie Brown in prime position to be rejected and ridiculed (again) by his peers, but he agrees. He is desperate enough to try anything.)

Lucy also commiserates with him. Their shared problem, she suggests, is that Christmas always delivers the wrong gifts.

“I know how you feel about all this Christmas business. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want. I always get a lot of stupid toys, or a bicycle, or clothes, or something like that,” Lucy complains.

“What is it you want?” Charlie Brown asks.

Lucy’s response is a punchline for the ages: “Real estate.” 

The brilliance of that irony never fails to sting! All the “stupid toys” in the world will never suffice – but all the abstract aspirations of “what more” are patently ridiculous. 

Soon after, Charlie Brown’s little sister, Sally, adds her two cents to the algorithm of equating the gift of Christmas with what’s wrapped under the tree. Too young to write her own letter to Santa, Sally nevertheless demonstrates a precociously sophisticated understanding of the world:

Sally: “You write it and I will tell you what I want to say… Dear Santa, how have you been? Have you had a nice summer? How is your wife? I have been extra good this year, so I have a long list of presents that I want…”

Charlie Brown: “Oh, brother…”

Sally: “… Please note the size and color of each item and send as many as possible. And if it seems to complicated, make it easy on yourself. Just send money. Tens and twenties…”

Charlie Brown: “Tens and twenties?!? Oh, even my baby sister!!!”

Sally: “All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.”

The words are screamingly funny because they are delivered in baby-talk, by a diminutive cartoon cutie pie with a pigtail on top of her head. But the words themselves articulate the Big Problems of Christmas Presents, don’t they? Entitlement skews our expectations toward greed. Anything / everything should be monetized. More is always better. Etc.

For poor ole Charlie Brown, things go from bad to worse as he fails to direct the Christmas Play, fails to choose the right Christmas Tree, even fails to keep his own dog from embarking on a crusade of “Christmas Commercialism.” But the turning point hinges on all these failures – all these inadequacies and cheap tricks – revealed as such.

The turning point happens late in the show, when Linus recites the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke. In that recitation, Linus and his ubiquitous blue “trusty blanket” (surely among literature’s most celebrated security-woobie-icons) not only name the real Gift of Christmas, they teach the necessity of letting go in order to receive… an oft-neglected but non-negotiable prerequisite for contentment. 

You may recall a more recent version of this let-go-to-take-hold paradigm, in Rob Bell’s video short, “Shells.” In that video, Bell describes a family trip to Lake Superior, and his son’s ecstatic collecting of bits of shell along the seashore. When a beautiful starfish floats into reachable territory, the son is frantic with conflict: how can he possibly take hold of the starfish (a prize trophy!) when his hands are full of shell-bits (just junk that he’s picked up)? 

Carrying stuff requires a tight grip; a tight grip requires closed hands. Therefore, we cannot take hold of anything new if we don’t first put down whatever we’re already clutching / carrying.  Linus, in 78 seconds, show-and-tells the corrective to this in gloriously concise, clear terms.

The chaos and cacophony of the strange “Christmas Play” rehearsal has just dissolved into complete anarchy, and Charlie Brown has yelled those timeless words of lamentation, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?!” 

Linus, calmly responding, moves downstage center. He conspicuously drags with him the infamous blue “trusty blanket.” At his request, Linus is illuminated by a single spotlight. The camera rushes toward him, so that nobody else is visible on the bare stage. And Linus speaks the good news of the Nativity, word for word, from Luke chapter 2.

As he begins, Linus holds his “trusty blanket” firmly in his left hand, gesturing and pointing with it dangling from his fist. But when he speaks the angel’s words to the shepherds, “Fear not! For behold…” Linus throws down that blanket and continues speaking, unencumbered – both hands free – the “trusty blanket” literally out of the picture. The blanket that Linus has persistently refused to release (even prognosticating that it will become a sports coat in order to stay with him in later life) gets discarded in a moment, rendered suddenly irrelevant by news of the newborn Christ. This dramatic shift makes physical in real-time what the words from Luke describe: Jesus’s birth – itself the ultimate gift – frees all people, forever (gift from the Gift)!

With one definitive gesture, Linus illustrates a profound truth: “Security blankets” get in the way of eternal security by fooling us into thinking that our salvation is anywhere but in Christ, ironically making us insecure in perpetuity. Perhaps even worse, “security blankets” keep our hands full and preclude our openness to new gifts God would give us.

“Fear not, for behold…” the angel says. Those eager to receive the Gift empty their hands. 

Confession: I usually stumble toward Christmas with at least one “trusty blanket” dragging in my wake. I may clutch the notion of a certain amount in the savings account, a certain health status for my loved ones, a certain ratio of items checked off my list, whatever. But it’s a cinch that my woobie (whatever it is) is tripping me up. Linus’s performance reminds: “trusty blankets” are innately untrustworthy.

So, A Charlie Brown Christmas entertainingly makes the case that gifts are NOT the point and security blankets need to be let go. But the Peanuts characters also elucidate several uncomfortable facts: When we begin to mistake shiny clutter for the reason for the season, we set ourselves up for heartache. When we celebrate the glitz and tinsel as if they were meaningful in themselves, we miss the meaning altogether. And when we keep our fists clenched and our expectations tethered to a wish list, we miss the manger. We miss the Lord. We miss the Gift!  

There’s a unique gift in the circumstances of Christmas 2020: clarity. In the bleakness of this chapter of global history, we SEE that all the decorations and carols and feasts in the world cannot unmake the hurt. We KNOW that no pile of presents under the tree can compensate for the losses and griefs around us. And we are SET FREE from the illusion that our security blankets have kept us safe. We are much less tempted than usual to monetize our Santa list in 2020, because we know there isn’t enough money in the world to really fix things! That is a GIFT. A hard gift, yes, with sharp edges and little beauty. But a gift, nonetheless.

A Charlie Brown Christmas ends in jubilant singing, the motley crew of characters suddenly united around a miraculously rehabilitated tree.

The choice of carol is anything but coincidental; the words repeat – just in case we missed it – the Gift that Christmas offers to all, every year, even 2020:

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!

With angelic hosts proclaim: Christ is born in Bethlehem!

Hark, the herald angels sing! Glory to the newborn King!