Over the past few years — doubly so for this year — the Christmas season has become harder and harder to bear — the former because they have been without my father and the later because this will be the first without my mother, as well. My wife and my sister (since she’s come to live with us) have been trying like hell to remind me that my parents would not have wanted me to sulk and remember them by rejecting the very holiday season that provide so many happy memories of them— and yet, I do.
I want to be the grinchy one this year. I want to rant and rave and howl at the moon until I shake the very foundations of the world. I want… I want Christmas to be Christmas, again. So, armed with that bit of back story, perhaps it might be understandable how I nearly broke down in tears while listening to the recently remastered and expanded CD of Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Seriously, I wept.
Perhaps it was the immediate recognition of the fact that this music was something my entire family would enjoy annually as we would watch the animated cartoon A Charlie Brown Christmas, gathered together in out living room? Whatever the reason, as soon as the opening notes of “O Tannenbaum” slowly glided out of my bedroom stereo, the waterworks began.
As the album continued playing, however, the tears became fewer and fewer. I’m not saying that, at the end of it all, I was dancing and joyous like Snoopy on top of Schroeder’s piano in the cartoon. No, I was still melancholy and maudlin as all get-out, but there was this smile on my face despite it.
Other than putting on the cartoon itself, is there any better way to celebrate the true spirit of the holiday season than by listening to a copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas on your home stereo?
Article comments
1 - Mike
Hey Michael, great post on Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. I ended my Christmas post on the same album, and for many of the same reasons. I just never tire of listening to Linus recite the real meaning of Christmas. The music always gives me that warm fuzzy feeling of home and a loving childhood. Thanks for validating those feelings.