I have written before of Christmas viewing traditions — mostly theatrical releases, such as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" but also holiday episodes of TV series like The West Wing.
I've even written about one of my mother's favorite Christmas movies, "We're No Angels."
I always loved the Christmas season when I was a child. I suppose most children do. But I remember observing at an early age that there was a kind of Christmas bandwagon effect — Christmas music and decorations everywhere and ever earlier in the season, always encouraging people to spend, to give — and it troubled me.
There were the Christmas TV specials with their subliminal — and not–so–subliminal — messages.
Often, the holiday specials seemed to be about self–promotion. Entertainers were always doing Christmas specials when I was growing up, and I noticed there was often more emphasis on the entertainer's newest record than on a celebration of the season.
Then there were the animated programs — the ones about Rudolph the Red–Nosed Reindeer, the Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman.
And there always seems to be at least one Christmas movie in the theaters at Christmas time. Well, it was that way when I was a kid. My mother always knew what the hot Christmas movie was, and she made sure the family went to it. Some were good; others, not so much.
Many movies and TV shows aspire to be holiday traditions. Few actually become them.
There are so many. And some are clearly better than others. I can understand the pressure to do something that makes your project stand out from the rest. Unfortunately, many of the Christmas projects end up coming across as predictable.
Maybe the secret is to not try so hard to be profound, to be touching, to be sentimental.
And it would help if some holiday–oriented movies and specials didn't seem to be in a hurry to brand themselves Christmas traditions. If it is their destiny to become traditions, it will happen without any outside help.
I don't know when anything actually makes that transition from a thing or an activity or whatever to a tradition.
But you can usually pinpoint when such a thing made its first appearance.
And Thursday will be the anniversary of such a debut. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" first aired on CBS on Dec. 9, 1965.
I don't think I watched it when it first aired. My family didn't get a TV until a year or two later.
Perhaps, though, even in that comparatively primitive time, my parents heard the hype about the TV special and asked their friends who did have a TV (and there weren't all that many of them in those days) if we could watch it with them — and, thus, it is possible that I saw it when it made its debut.
But my earliest memory of watching it is in the house where I grew up ... on the relatively small black–and–white TV set that didn't come into our home until I was in elementary school. By that time, whenever it may have been — a year or two later, possibly, perhaps more — the program was being touted as a "Christmas tradition."
And perhaps I, being a young and impressionable boy, accepted that it was a tradition without questioning the assertion. If I did, I did so without all the facts.
But neither I nor the assertion were wrong.
I don't recall ever seeing those early ratings for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" — but I figure they must have been pretty good because, if nothing else, time has proven that "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is truly a broadcasting tradition. It has been shown at least once every year since it premiered.
By the time I saw it in my home, I suppose, the program had established a track record that qualified it as a tradition. That's what they told me, anyway, and I accepted it.
Thankfully, they were right. This time.
For many years, the program aired only once a year. A couple of times, the special aired on the nights before my family was going to drive to Dallas to spend Christmas with my grandparents.
We always watched it, even if we were planning to spend the next day on the road, and I remember gazing dreamily out the car window as we drove to Dallas, watching the sun settle on the western horizon and hearing the sounds of the Peanuts gang in my head.
Christmas in my grandparents' home was always magical for me, and all I need to do is hear a few of the jazzy notes from Schroeder's piano or the first words of Linus' recitation (see above) to feel that magic rush through my body again — at least for a few seconds.
In recent years, the program has been shown a couple of times during the Christmas season.
I say that because ABC will be showing it tonight at 7 Central time.
So, if it won't be shown a second time this holiday season, this will be your only opportunity to make it a part of your holiday tradition for 2010.
Don't let it slip away.
