Peanuts on My Tree

Yesterday was Charles Schulz’ birthday. I’m not sure how I missed it, since I’m pretty good about remembering famous dead people’s birthdays, but in any case I feel it’s important to mark the occasion, especially in this creative space. I mean, seeing as he and his work contribute so much to who I am and what I love about life, it’s the least I can do.

It’s challenging for me to put into words my feelings about the Peanuts cartoons. They are more than a memory of simpler times in childhood’s past, more than amusing pictorial anecdotes about the pains of growing up. In fact, they are probably my favorite cartoons of all time.

Sorry, Disney. I love you too! Just in a different way!

We grew up watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Christmas every year on their respective holidays, so these cartoons obviously had a significant impact on how I celebrate these, my two favorite holidays. I associate these two cartoons with the best of good times – carving pumpkins and decorating pumpkin cookies, drinking spiced eggnog and putting up the Christmas tree.

Also, my Grandma Maxene had the old-fashioned Peanuts cartoons in collectible books. Whenever we spent the night at her house, over our breakfast of sourdough toast and guava juice we’d read through the newspaper comics together and share our favorite strip. Afterward, we’d thumb through the books, giggling at their antiquity and asking Grandma about Brylcreem and if going to the movies really cost a quarter back then. Peanuts never fail to remind me of those times when we still wore nightgowns with Bugs Bunny on the front and hand knitted slippers.

I’ve always related a lot to Charlie Brown, sadly enough. Always the well-meaning misfit, shunned by his peers for no good reason – much like Charles Schulz, who once said he felt chronically rejected (whether or not it was true). Hmm, sounds familiar…

I have a few Christmas ornament collections (you can’t escape being born on Christmas Eve without acquiring a ton of ornaments), which I will not go into here (ahem, entire Star Wars collectible series). The smallest of them is a Peanuts collection, of which there are two; this one:

And this one:

This year, I am relating a lot to Lucy – and not in a good way. When Mike asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I couldn’t think of anything other than a new car, laser eye surgery or the VCR hooked up (that or my video cassette collection converted to DVD – I’m not sure which one is less likely to happen).

Actually, this list reflects that I’m a pretty content person right now. I don’t desire expensive clothes or handbags, I have everything I need. Except…

…you guessed it, expensive stuff. I don’t even need a new car – a nice, new-ish used one would suffice. And the only reason an extended European vacation is not on my list this year is because I can totally wait for next year.

Le sigh. Poor Mike. This is every husband’s nightmare, second only to when a wife tells him not to get her anything.

Although I’m thinking about doing that instead…how else am I going to save enough money for my new Audi?

[Insert ironic laugh]