There always comes a point during the Christmas season when I feel like such a blockhead.
Got to get the tree up (this year we have four), put the lights on the house, buy the presents, wrap the presents, mail the presents. You know the list. All the obligations of Christmas, which always seem so overwhelming.
Actually, the arc of my emotional reaction to the season is captured nicely in the iconic Christmas special from 1965, "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
For those of you who keep track of such things, that Peanuts special originally aired on TV almost 60 years ago. It preempted "The Munsters." That fact alone is enough to pop my holiday bubble.
"I think there must be something wrong with me," Charlie Brown tells Linus. "Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel."
"Charlie Brown," Linus tells him, "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."
"I know how you feel about all this Christmas business, getting depressed and all that," Lucy confides to Charlie Brown. "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."
For Lucy, even Christmas snowflakes are unsatisfying. "It's too early," she says. "I never eat December snowflakes. I always wait until January."
"They sure look ripe to me," Linus tells her.
Charlie Brown weaves his way through the story looking for a reason to celebrate, something that will give the holiday meaning for him.
Even Snoopy seems to have sold out by decorating his doghouse for a lights and display contest, which he ultimately wins.
Charlie Brown becomes exasperated. "Rats!," he says. "Nobody sent me a Christmas card today. I almost wish there weren't a holiday season. I know nobody likes me. Why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?
His little sister, Sally, doesn't make things any easier for him. Dictating a letter to Santa Claus, she tells Charlie Brown to write, "Dear Santa Claus, How have you been? Did you have 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."
"Oh brother," is all Charlie Brown can manage.
"Look, Charlie, let's face it," Lucy says, "we all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big Eastern syndicate, you know."
Then there was Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. The group needed a tree for their annual Christmas play. Lucy sends Charlie Brown and Linus to get one. "Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find, Charlie Brown, maybe painted pink!"
But Charlie Brown sees a sorry-looking sapling which he thinks is perfect. "I think it needs me," he tells Linus, but when he gets back to the theater with it, the other kids laugh him to scorn.
A crestfallen Charlie Brown wonders, "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"
"Sure, Charlie Brown," Linus says, "I can tell you what Christmas is all about."
A spotlight shines on Linus as he stands center stage, and in a voice of youth and innocence perfect for the moment, Linus begins,
"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 unto 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 Savior, 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.'"
"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
Having come to the realization he doesn't have to allow the worldly clutter of secularism to destroy his Christmas, Charlie Brown, with his friends following close behind takes his tree home to decorate, but when he hangs a large red Christmas ball on it, the diminutive sapling bends to the ground.
"I've killed it!" Charlie Brown cries in despair. "Everything I touch gets ruined." Head hung low, he walks away.
But his friends, with hearts softened by Linus' recitation of scripture, come to his aid. Looking at the tree, Linus explains, "I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love."
Linus secures the tree by wrapping his blanket around its base and stripping the decorations from Snoopy's doghouse, the kids work together to transform the little tree Charlie Brown thought he had killed, into a beautiful tree perfectly decorated for the season.
Even Lucy is forced to concede, "Charlie Brown is a blockhead, but he did get a nice tree."
Charlie Brown returns to see what his friends have done. The gang shouts, "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!" and breaks into a chorus of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!" as snow begins to fall.
There is something profound in the simplicity of this Christmas special. The story is simple. The animation is simple. The music is simple.
And so is the message of Christ's gospel.
This Christmas, allow that message to break through all the clutter.
Christmas is not "getting all you can get while the getting is good." as Sally opined.
It's the recognition that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
Jesus was the child born into a manager. He came to save the world from its sin. He came to save you from your sin. If that's not your focus this Christmas, you really are missing the point.
Merry Christmas! And may God bless us, everyone!