3 Crucible Lessons from A Charlie Brown Christmas

3 Crucible Lessons from

A Charlie Brown Christmas

by Gary Schneeberger

December 20, 2024

A Charlie Brown Christmas, the TV special that’s been a yuletide staple since its premiere in 1965, almost didn’t even make it to its first airing. That’s because even though the Peanuts comic strip had been popular since premiering 15 years earlier, pretty much every aspect of the television production – the first animation featuring the Peanuts gang and shepherded by its creator, Charles Schulz — was rushed.

As a result, one of the producers thought the finished product was so bad that they had “killed” Peanuts for future animation efforts, and the network that signed on to broadcast the show, CBS, thought it would be a colossal failure. Yet its premiere drew 45 percent of everyone in America watching TV that evening – reaching more than 15 million homes – and the rest has become holiday history that is still being written.

Perhaps the crucibles the special encountered on its way to the screen were to be expected, since A Charlie Brown Christmas is all about the title character’s struggle with his own major crucible. From the opening scene, Charlie Brown is caught in emotional upheaval that leaves him depressed about the holiday, which is sung about as “the most wonderful time of the year” and is experienced as just that – at least on the surface – by the other kids in his orbit.

“I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel,” he confides to his best pal, Linus. A bit later, after inspecting his mailbox to see that he still hasn’t received a Christmas card, he’s left musing, “I know nobody likes me. Why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?” His doldrums deepen when his little sister, Sally, asks for his help in composing a letter to Santa – and she tells St. Nick that if he wants to “make it easy” on himself, he can just send cash in lieu of the litany of toys she enumerates. She asks for the dough in “tens and twenties,” since she’s been extra good and “all I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.”

All of this leaves Charlie Brown to conclude Christmas has become too commercialized. This setup sends him on a hero’s journey of sorts to discover his Christmas joy by trying to discover the true meaning of the holiday.

He does three critical things to turn his trial into triumph – lessons about moving beyond a crucible that can help all of us navigate our way back from setback and failure.

1. He leans into authenticity and is vulnerable for a purpose. Charlie Brown, despite his ever-present desire to be liked, refuses to play along with his materialistic friends and family, or even his dog, Snoopy, who has pulled out all the stops to decorate his doghouse splashily enough to win a decorating contest and its cash prize. He even parts with a nickel to get “psychiatric counsel” from Lucy to understand why he’s so glum.

It’s an important turning point for him as he wrestles with his despondency. It’s also extraordinarily brave because Lucy – the girl who always snatches the football away just as he tries to kick it – surely must have seemed to him as an unlikely source of assistance. But by being vulnerable to the one person he likely thought would take advantage of him for it, he shows great belief that maybe, just maybe, she’ll treat him squarely. It’s a risk that pays off when Lucy rewards his earnestness with an opportunity: she makes him the director of the kids’ upcoming Christmas play. Charlie Brown’s not out of the emotional woods just yet, but there’s the slightest bit of light at the end of his tunnel.

That glimmer of hope is one we should all dig in to and search for when hopelessness threatens to keep us from moving forward post-crucible. When we’re at the precipice of thinking all is lost, when the negativity of our circumstances threatens to lead us to giving up and pulling the covers over our head, we can only get ahead by not throwing in the towel. By persevering.

2. He casts a vision and sticks to it. Charlie Brown throws himself completely into the opportunity to stage the holiday play. He has no experience directing a play, but he knows how he wants this one to go. His initial efforts to get the kids to listen to his direction fall flat – rather than getting into their characters as he directs, they ignore him and dance away to the bouncy tune being played on the piano by Schroeder. He’s frustrated to “Good grief!” intensity but presses on. He changes course – rather than trying to direct the cast, he focuses on dressing the set. He heads out, with Linus, to get a Christmas tree for the show.

But not just any tree. Especially not the kind Lucy urges him to retrieve – “the biggest aluminum tree you can find.” At the tree lot, he walks past all the artificial specimens and instead gravitates toward a spare, sickly looking real tree with only a few branches. He’s taken by it immediately. “This little green one here seems to need a home,” he tells Linus. “I think it needs me.”

Charlie Brown had to have known grabbing that tree would lead to the catcalls of the gang’s favorite taunt for him: “blockhead.” But he does it anyway. So strong is his vision for a play that celebrates Christmas in a way that isn’t artificial that he’s willing to suffer the slings and arrows of his friends for sticking to his vision.

We all have to muster the same courage if we have any hope, any chance, of bringing our own visions to reality. Living a life of significance – a life on purpose dedicated to serving others – is not a popularity contest. We can’t achieve it by compromising our values; quite the contrary, we only reach that destination by doubling down on those values and the passions that undergird them. This is especially true when we encounter opposition.

3. He enlists a team of fellow travelers to help him. The tree, not surprisingly, is met with derision by the gang. Charlie Brown finds himself thrown back into depression and despair. He tells Linus, “I shouldn’t have picked this little tree. Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I really don’t know what Christmas is all about.” But rather than wallow there, he asks a rhetorical question of his friend: “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”

It’s the first time he has not just expressed his disillusionment about not experiencing the Christmas spirit but poses a question about how he might overcome those feelings. He wants someone to explain to him how to get in touch with the spirit of Christmas for reasons that have nothing to do with gifts and dollar signs. Linus seizes the moment to become to Charlie Brown the kind of ally we talk about a lot at Beyond the Crucible: a fellow traveler, someone with experience and even expertise we don’t have who complements us as we journey our way back from a crucible. By telling the story of Jesus’ birth and the hope His arrival gave the world, Linus gives Charlie Brown hope. An answer to the question that has plagued him throughout the special.

Even more than that, Linus becoming a fellow traveler inspires the rest of the gang to do the same. They don’t continue to team up, as they so often do in the Peanuts universe, to chide Charlie Brown. They join forces to support him. Inspired by Linus’ speech to emulate Linus’ support of their friend, they too become fellow travelers and follow Charlie Brown to his house, where he’s gone to decorate the tree he’s recommitted to. They repurpose Snoopy’s prize-winning decorations to transform the little wooden tree into a masterpiece of Christmastime beauty. It all ends joyously as they shout in unison, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!” … then break into “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing.”

We all need fellow travelers to help us stay the course on our journeys back from our crucibles. The weight of facing the doubts a setback can plague us with require the help of others who can share the burdens and, perhaps more importantly, alleviate them with their wisdom and support. Bouncing forward from our worst day is a team sport.

A Charlie Brown Christmas has been making a clear case for what Christmas is all about for nearly 60 years. It’s also been showing those of us who have experienced setback and failure the key steps we must take to understand our worst day is not the end of our story – but the launching point for a life-giving new story.