I guess I'm just in a Charlie Brown kinda mood right now. Not wishy-washy, but filled with love for that big-headed boy. My big question: how the heck does Chuck get those shirts over that HEAD? We have enough problems with our boy, but C.B. has real problems with his cabesa.

Anyway. I saw "A Peanuts Christmas" at the library. Not the animated special, but a book that came out last November that collects EVERY Peanuts Christmas-themed strip from the entire 50-year run of the series. This includes hundreds of comic strips, reprinted on high quality paper. There’s no commentary, no analysis, but the Christmas theme ties it all together in a way that most “Peanuts” collections aren’t.

This includes not just the strips in December, either, but any strip that even mentions Christmas or Santa Claus or anything Christmas related. So this includes a lot of strips from November, several from January, and some scattered throughout the rest of the year.

Since it’s chronological, you can see Schulz’ development of characters and storylines. As an example, the 1951 Christmas strips are simple. There are only two of them; one features Violet and Charlie Brown making their Christmas lists, and the other features Charlie Brown and the gang gathered around Schroeder’s piano singing “A Very Merry Christmas To You All…” not a whole lot of character there.

Moving into the late 1950’s, we can see the seeds of the Charlie Brown Christmas animated special—there are a lot of pageants that the kids are involved in, with Linus usually quoting the Bible and Charlie Brown fretting about how commercial Christmas has become. The Christmas Special aired in 1962, and the characters sometimes refer back to those events in some of the later strips, but Schulz never revisits it as such.

The story arcs get bigger as time goes on, and we start to see running gags from year to year. Some of the more enjoyable ones involve Sally Brown, Charlie Brown’s little sister. Ever skeptical, she attacks department store Santas on several occasions, the most memorable being one where she’s checking his earlobes for creases as a sign of high blood pressure and an impending coronary. In a somewhat macabre strip, Charlie Brown and Sally watch the newscast where that Santa is carried away to the hospital “after being assaulted by a little girl.” She also decides one year that she doesn’t want any presents from anyone, telling all of her friends, parents, Santa Claus, and everyone…and then has a “deathbed repentance” on Christmas Eve. Very funny stuff. The other recurring theme with Sally is her Christmas card list—we never actually see her send cards, but she has a good time making the list and then violently crossing names off for real or imagined slights.

There are some sweet strips involving Snoopy and Woodstock and their little gifts they buy for each other…one of the best is when Snoopy buys Woodstock a goldfish (the bowl for which boots little Woodstock completely out of his nest!). Snoopy also dresses as Santa and is a bell-ringer on a street corner, which makes for some funny set-ups with the other characters.

Peppermint Patty gets a good deal of time in the later pages of the book, as she dreads her role in the Christmas pageant (she has to be a sheep every year, while Marcie gets the more glamorous role of Mary), and she spends a lot of time avoiding her Christmas Break homework. In a surprising turn of events, Peppermint Patty actually wins an essay contest about “What I did over Christmas Break,” and in an even MORE surprising turn, we discover her real name: PATRICIA REICHARDT.

Other highlights include a series involving Snoopy’s brother Spike, a very skinny dog who lives in Needles, California,and who has to resort to decorating a Christmas cactus, giving gifts to rocks, and other things that really accentuate his loneliness. Sad, but funny.

The other thing I’ll mention is a series of strips at the end of the book featuring “Rerun.” Rerun is Linus and Lucy’s younger brother, and looks a lot like Linus. He originally debuted in the early 1980’s, where he spent a lot of time on the back of his mother’s bicycle. He was phased out for about 15 years, reappearing in the late 1990’s as a kindergartner, and was really much more endearing as a five-year old than he ever was before. The 1998 Christmas strips feature Rerun and his desperate attempts to get a dog for Christmas. He asks Santa (actually Snoopy dressed like Santa), begs his parents, talks to Linus and Lucy about it, and ulitmately—doesn’t get a dog for Christmas. It’s a sweet little story, and evidently these strips together with some others are the basis for a new “Peanuts” Christmas Special debuting this December 9th. It’s called, fittingly enough, “I Want a Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown,” and will air on ABC. So check local listings for that.

A tiny gripe: whoever edited the strips for this book needed me as a proofreader, because they repeated four of the strips. But that's nitpicky when there are so many wonderful strips reprinted here.

This makes a great yuletide treat for a “Peanuts” fan in your family, but I’d recommend finding it and maybe giving it to them sometime before Christmas so it will help them get into the Christmas spirit. Charlie Brown-style.


Recommended: Yes