Charlie Brown is honestly not the best comic strip around.  Although, I myself am not a big fan of newspaper comic strips in general, I can still say that I find some to be more entertaining than others.  I prefer the likes of Chicken Soup for the Soul and Calvin and Hobbes, and Charlie Brown comics never seem to keep my interest.  Thus, if I were around in 1965, I probably wouldn’t have been all that excited for A Charlie Brown Christmas, which was the fist in a long line of TV specials based on the long-running strip.  To my surprise, the holiday special has become one that I watch every year.

The simplistic story of Charlie Brown and his unsure feelings toward the Christmas season are well known by most.  He becomes director of the Christmas play, and chooses a pathetic tree for the set.  Once the others see the tree, they dismiss it first, but realize that all it needs is someone to care for it.

Okay, I’m going to keep this review short, because there isn’t much to this special.  The acting is pretty bad, and the animation is cheap.  The voice actors, who I’m sure were just a bunch of kids when they recorded this, don’t do particularly good job with their lines, with the exception being Linus.  The animation is sub-par, but it is the 1960’s, so I guess I can cut it some slack.  The real reason why I like the special so much is……… hard to explain.

There is just something about it that I can’t explain, that draws me back every year.  Is it charm?  The film is pretty special, being one of the first TV specials of this nature, and I guess that gives it some character.  It is a classic, due to its message (which is one that most Christmas specials today seem to emulate; remember the season as a time of love and caring) and its age.  And sometimes, that can be enough to leave a mark on people.