A Charlie Brown Christmas/Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales

For the finale of my 25 film review countdown to Christmas marathon, I thought that I would end off with another beloved classic. Hey, it’s Christmas, so why not? Today, let’s cap this marathon off with the 1965 “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

This special finds the always insecure Charlie Brown, voiced by Peter Robbins, unhappy that it’s Christmastime again. You might be thinking, “Why would he be unhappy? Christmas is everyone’s favorite holiday.” Well, Charlie Brown has not received any Christmas cards. Lucy, voiced by Tracy Stratford, tries to cheer him up by getting him involved in the annual Christmas play by asking him to be the director. Charlie Brown takes on the position with his usual intrusiveness, and everyone thinks the play will fail.

The filmmakers, especially Bill Melendez and Charles Schultz, keep the story innocent and charismatic, which helps children to love this special, but bringing in jazz artist Vince Guaraldi to do the music, they capture the adults’ attention as well. The combination is mouth-watering, and music from the episode went on to become the best-selling soundtrack. Playing that CD of Guaraldi’s music every Christmas should bring holiday cheer in your house.

Lucy thinks the play needs a modern spirit of Christmas and sends out Charlie Brown with the duty to find an aluminum Christmas tree. Instead, Charlie Brown ignores Lucy’s orders and goes out and buys a real Christmas tree instead. The result is emotional and provides an interesting lesson about the true meaning of Christmas. This got the “Peanuts” shows off to a very special start and it holds up to this very day.

Hands down, this special will get a 10+. It’s another one of my absolute favorite Christmas specials ever.

We're not done yet folks, because we are going to look at another Peanuts Christmas Special titled "Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales," released in 2002. This one is about a series of Christmastime vignettes with different Peanuts characters: Snoopy, Linus, Sally, Lucy, and Charlie Brown. Snoopy (Bill Melendez) is having difficulty trying to forge a Christmas song with the vicious cat next door and wants to ice skate with Lucy (Serena Berman), but she doesn't want to do anything with Snoopy. Linus (Corey Padnos) works on his letter to Santa and tries to figure out the girl in his class sitting behind him who always changes her name. Sally (Megan Taylor Harvey) writes a letter to "Samantha Claus" and mortifies herself in class, Lucy tries to be nice to her brothers, and Charlie Brown (Wesley Singerman) tires to prepare for Christmas.

In each of the small stories, you get a vision of what's going on in the characters' heads. Even though this special is inferior compared to "A Charlie Brown Christmas," I believe that "Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales" might be a yearly tradition of Christmas specials to watch around the holiday times. In the end, I would probably give this film an 8.

Thanks for joining in on my 25 film reviews of Christmas specials; Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Peace to everyone. Stay tuned this Friday when I start back up on my regular Friday reviews.