Charlie Brown Christmas in the Bathroom

A few years ago I was working on music for a Christmas Eve service, and I chose a personal favorite for a kids' group to sing: "Christmas Time Is Here," from the soundtrack for "A Charlie Brown Christmas."  Instead of openly objecting to the song (which I now know everyone hated except me), my colleagues allowed it, then made fun of it (and me) throughout the holidays.  The kidding culminated in a gift I have cherished ever since: a plastic display of all the Peanuts characters from the Christmas special.  Since it doesn't meet my wife's standards of impeccable taste in Christmas decorating, it is relegated to the upstairs bathroom this year, next to my home office.  The bathroom is now my favorite room of the house this Christmas (notwithstanding the gingerbread man soap dispenser who crashed the party).

Forty-four years after its TV debut, I still think Charlie Brown and his gang effectively remind us of the best reason to celebrate at Christmas, and expose our worst efforts to ruin it.  I love to laugh at Lucy as she complains that what she really wants for Christmas is not toys, but real estate; or Snoopy, obsessed with winning the local Christmas lighting contest with his doghouse.  And I relate personally to Charlie, striving to find some significance in what has become not just a commercial event, but an economic necessity for the American retail industry.

But there is more than meets the eye in this little cartoon.  The scrawny tree that becomes the object of Charlie's affection happens to be the only living tree on the lot--a far cry from the pink aluminum tree Lucy was hoping for.  It's special to Charlie, but he doesn't know why until Linus makes his famous speech.

Luke 2:8-14, King James version.  Underneath all the mountains of wrapping paper, lights, musical extravaganzas, cookies, parties, and shopping malls, there is still only one place in Christmas where there is life.  And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.  I hope you find Jesus, humble and unassuming and unadorned, God and Savior and Prince of Peace, this and every Christmas, and every day of the year.