Basking in a quiet moment at home. Husband snoozing in the easy chair, fire roaring, and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” playing quietly in the background.
I’m going to lay down a bit of a proclamation here. This album is the business. To me, for Christmas music, it doesn’t get better than this. When going through my Christmas things, I actually came across not one, not two, but three copies of the CD. I took one copy to the classroom. As of late, that and the Rod Stewart Christmas album “Merry Christmas Baby” has been on repeat.
Look at him. What a total babe fest. He’s so cheeky; sitting in a chair the wrong way and bringing the holiday season a whole new brand of sexy. Me-ow Rod, you bring new meaning to the phrase “ring ting a ling”. For your money, I don’t think it gets better than Rod belting out “Jingle Bells“, “Silent Night” or if you get him really drunk I hear he does one rousing version of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer“. But if you have a relatively sane family, and need a dose of holiday crazy, I’d recommend these two kooky kids.
Jesus Christ. There is enough plastic here to build a fucking spaceship. What fun they are having. Bless Olivia and her enormous coffee mug. She’s holding that hot coffee right up against her face and she can’t even feel it. And who does John think he’s fooling with those eyebrows? That’s Peter Gallagher‘s thing and everybody knows it.
Well hello there, who ordered the smoldering gaze with a side of piercing stare? Has anyone alerted you to John Travolta, his embarrassing Christmas album and his encroaching eyebrows?
You see, there is a rather fine line between good and bad cheese: John Travolta and Olivia Newton John following a 1978 musical classic with this…that is bad cheese.
Now if you want some proper Christmas gouda, you’d spend your Christmas nights with Boney M.
Don’t even get me started on this one. By the time we get to the “Oh My Lord” verse of “Mary’s Boy Child” I’m clapping my hands, and riding high on the Christmas spirit. 
I think that a healthy dose of cheese makes such classics as “Wonderful Christmas Time” by Paul McCartney and Wham’s “Last Christmas” possible.
But I’ll stop you right there if you’d think I’d be interested in any version of “Santa Baby”, or Harry Connick Jr’s”Parade of the Wooden Soldiers”. That song is so agitating, it makes me want to drive my car right into the horn section just to stop all that goddamn racket. As for “Santa Baby” I don’t like getting flirty with Santa, he’s a giver of gifts, he’s not a Sugar Daddy.
What I like most about Charlie Brown is that it’s festive but mellow. So while I love holiday cheese, I love the soundtrack because it’s anything but. It’s mature, slightly melancholic and sincere. It says “Christmas makes me happy and sad all at the same time, but let’s focus on the positive, shall we?” Sometimes I feel as though holiday happiness is an uphill battle, and Charlie totally gets that. And year after year I’m comforted by those jazzy undertones in the backgrounds of all my Christmases.
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