"Snoopy's Christmas" breaks through with best spirit

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Looks like no problem with having a white Christmas this year. "White Christmas" the movie had a nostalgic outlook on the Second World War. In this way it was similar to another movie I wrote about recently: "The Best Years of Our Lives." The outlook is disturbing because we should never have warm thoughts in connection to war. The nostalgic point of view is from the survivors. We don't get input from those who are gone forever. 

It is Tuesday morning in 2022 with Christmas inching closer. Do you sense less of an outward Christmas spirit out and around? I do in fact sense less. Whether this reflects a retreat of Christianity, it's hard to say. Are we just holding the festive spirit within us? That would be fine. 

If nothing else, I do not sense the Christmas spirit starting right after Thanksgiving. For much of my life, one could plunge right in, even listening to the standard Christmas songs from early-on. I do commend our Morris McDonald's restaurant as it piped in the festive sounds from real early-on. 

The list of popular Christmas songs sometimes gets adjusted, as this is a most subjective thing. What about Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You?" This was a rare example of a fresh composition vaulting into the circle of Christmas standards. Is it holding up? You might recall the lawsuit begun a few months ago, growing out of a previously written song that had the same title. Music legal scholars became rather transfixed. 

This suit was going to be a real test case. It would test the standard thinking that a song title by itself has no IP (intellectual property) protection. I wrote at the time that the length of this particular song title could make it an exception. Still, if the suit were to break through as anything other than frivolous, it would give pause in commercial music. Has news of the suit tarnished the enthusiasm about the Carey recording? So buoyant and happy, the epitome of those qualities. 

 

An "oldie" gets current

As I listened at McDonald's one day, it dawned on me that a Christmas song from the '60s might be rising in popularity. I have heard it multiple times during our current Christmas season. This song is "Snoopy's Christmas" featuring the "Peanuts" character of course. I have been familiar with it from way back. The "Royal Guardsmen" gave us this holiday single. It dates from 1967. 

Any mention of 1967 or '68 should be a reminder that the U.S. was in the depths of the horrific Vietnam war. The daily headlines from the war gave a backdrop to the growing-up years of my generation, the boomers. So we had to live with that while at the same time enjoying the kind of affluence that was quite beyond our parents when they were growing up. 

I have wondered: How could a nation that fought the Vietnam war also be a place for such joyful pop culture like the Don Knotts movies? "Atta boy, Luther!" Remember that? Twig Webster liked that line. It was from "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken." 

The unique comedic talent, Knotts, was also featured in "The Reluctant Astronaut." My late father was a huge fan of that movie. 

Network TV gave us joyous annual Christmas specials. We had so much more of a shared culture back then. People had fewer choices so we could discuss the well-known shows with just about anyone. The 1966 Andy Williams Christmas special is on YouTube. America was sliding into the depths of hell with the Vietnam war. Juxtapose that with the innocent joy of Andy and his regular cast on that show. We'd see Andy's parents, his brothers, his wife Claudine and the Osmonds. 

Claudine went on to enter infamy but let's not get into that. In 1966 these souls were at the top of their game. Remember, you had "one shot" at watching shows back then. A regular series could get "re-run" in summer. We considered re-runs a downer just like late-afternoon (or after-school) television. A "special" on TV was one time. Bob Hope was a staple. Hard to take a bathroom break. Oh, but the commercials!

 

What's old is new

I am happy if "Snoopy's Christmas" is having a resurgence or renaissance or whatever. The song was a follow-up to the earlier Royal Guardsmen song "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron." The backdrop for both is war, in this case World War I, but the Christmas song gives us a pause in the fighting. A literal pause actually happened in the real WWI. 

Snoopy goes out to confront the Red Baron on a cold Christmas Eve. The dog is actually on top of his doghouse - you surely remember the motif. Alas, the Baron appears to have our lovable dog at his mercy. The guns go silent, and instead the Baron forces Snoopy to land. The Baron offers Snoopy a "chivalrous holiday toast." 

The song has a very distinctive, very moving beginning: we hear "O Tannenbaum." Translates to "O Christmas Tree." We hear chimes in the song's middle portion. The chimes come back at song's end which is a fade. Do songs end with "fades" any more? There was a time when the fade was quite standard. 

 

A blessed truce

Important: "Snoopy's Christmas" references the 1914 "Christmas truce" of World War I. The soldiers and not the commanders were behind this break. Would you believe, combatants in the trenches exchanged gifts? Troops on both sides shared family pictures. Friendly games of football also! Would that this spirit could have seeped through permanently. But we are so human an animal. 

Perhaps I should again cite the line from the "Austin Powers" movies: "Let daddy do his work." Dr. Evil spoke this to make clear to his puzzled son "Scott" why things just had to be done a certain way. So, wars have to be fought from time to time. But maybe that's done now? Donald Trump is a menace to the future of the world but he stumbled upon some wisdom by just saying "no more Middle East wars." Or presumably no more foreign wars or no wars at all. 

It took until now? And it took a morally bankrupt person like Trump to say this? So I guess "we're so human an animal."  Not sure I'm even applying that phrase right, but it surfaces in my head. You can surmise the meaning. You get my drift. 

A song about the spirit of truce is inspiring. The sound of "Snoopy's Christmas" is absolutely delightful after all these years. You don't have to make out all the words to appreciate it. The song just works. Songwriters cannot give a scientific explanation for how this happens. It just does. 

The song makes me happy this time of year. It helps me overcome the feeling that maybe we do not overtly celebrate the Christmas season like we once did. I'm ready to put "Snoopy's Christmas" in the top ten now, at least. A suggestion for one to remove from the top ten: "Jingle Bell Rock."

 

Addendum: Remember when Bob Hope announced the All-American football team each year? He'd make little quips about each guy as the guys smiled. They weren't quite so big then.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com