We're All Charlie Brown During the Holidays
Holiday gift-shopping presents deceptive, ever-moving goalposts that seduce us with the promise of the impossible. Good grief!
Who can forget the repeated scenes of Charlie Brown falling flat on his back yet again after trying to kick a football that Lucy has impishly yanked away? No matter how many times he’s failed, good old Charlie always believes that this time will be different. Lucy has changed. And he’ll finally succeed.
It’s funny because we all know that Charlie Brown will miss the ball.
But really, I think, it’s funny because we see ourselves in the character of Charlie Brown.
Each year at the holidays, we are accosted by images of happy children reveling in their newly received gifts.
The best-selling card game on Amazon — I had never heard of it until today — is called “Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.” It is apparently “perfect for all-ages,” and look at the joy it offers:
Smartly-dressed children and teens laugh hysterically with their carefree parents in an immaculate living room showcased by what looks to me like perhaps 10,000 watts of illumination. You even get a pool:
All from a $10 toy.
More traditional games (a.k.a. things I’ve heard of) promise a similar return to Eden. The classic “Connect 4,” it would seem, even teaches your children to be gracious losers, as with the girl on the right here, who couldn’t be happier for her sister’s victory:
Elsewhere on the Internet, outlets like CNN offer “the perfect gifts for your loved ones.”
What a concept: “The perfect gift.” Good grief!
It’s as though the only thing standing between children and unlimited bliss is the right gift. Find the right toy, and even teenagers will be gleeful. Siblings will stop fighting and start getting along. You and your spouse will get home from work in time to enjoy the evening with your children, who suddenly will have no homework. Even your house will magically become spotlessly clean and gloriously well lit. All if you find the right gift.
Children and adults alike buy into the myth, with real dollars.
But it doesn’t work. Like Charlie Brown, we find our goal of a Gift To End All Sadness snatched away at the last minute.
And, worse, we come to a reasonable but wrong conclusion when it fails: we think that we have simply bought the wrong gift. So we set out — again like Charlie Brown — with the firm but wrong expectation that next time will be different. The next gift will make our lives better, and fix what’s wrong in the lives of those we love.
Ancient writers primarily discuss gifts in the context of bribes. But not exclusively. Homer underscores the value of a small gift (“Δόσις δ᾽ ὀλίγη τε φίλη τε” — “A gift, though small, is welcome.”)1 And Ovid writes that the value of a gift comes from the affection of the giver (“...acceptissima semper // Munera sunt, auctor quae pretiosa facit.” — “The most acceptable gifts are always those which the giver makes precious.”)2 “It’s the thought that counts,” we might say.
Yes and no, of course. Sure, it’s the thought that counts. At the same time, there are things that are inherently nice to have.
So I have nothing against gifts. I like giving them and I like getting them. I will keep buying things for the important people in my life, and nothing I write here should dissuade you, dear reader, from buying things for me.
I like presents.
Even more, I like the messages of the holidays.
And lest I once again fall flat on my back, I try not to confuse one with the other.
[Originally published in similar form in 2010.]
Related:
Homer, Odyssey, Book VI, line 208, c. 850 BCE.
Ovid, Heroides, Epistle 17, 1st c. BCE.