Why Charlie Brown is Wrong About Christmas

The “commercialization” of Jesus’s birthday is in reality a giant ad campaign for Christ, for the Gospel, paid for without a cent of tithe money or offerings.

by Rod D. Martin
December 21, 2016

In the perfectly delightful A Charlie Brown Christmas, perhaps the most Christian 25 minutes of television ever (and not only because of Linus’s wonderful presentation of Luke chapter 2), everyone’s favorite Round Headed Kid unendingly decries the “commercialism” of Christmas.

And this is one of oh so many reasons Charlie Brown is rightly called a blockhead.

Commercialism is not, of course, the “real meaning of Christmas.” But the fact that Linus has to tell Charlie Brown what that true meaning is tells the rest of the story. Most people complaining about Christmas’s commercialism don’t know anything about Christmas’s “true meaning” either: they’re just complaining, as they always do, about nearly everything.

And complaining is the exact opposite of Christmas’s true meaning. Christmas is about grace. And grace, once received, is about gratitude.

As I’ve written before, Christmas is an absolutely singular holiday: there is nothing else like it. Independence…