‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ is the best Christmas special

“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is the second-best animated holiday special ever made, which is high praise indeed when you consider that of the dozens out there. Only “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is better. This is not even debatable, at least not in my mind.

But they are 1 and 1A, the Beatles and the Stones of their genre, and I’m not even sure which ones would be the Who and the Kinks. Could be the Mister Magoo cartoon version of “A Christmas Carol” or maybe the original “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer,” both of which are memorable.

Some folks have a warm spot in their hearts for “Frosty the Snowman,” but there’s something about it that, even as a kid, I found off-putting. Maybe it’s the dopey little girl.

Anyway, to get back to the Grinch, he’s a bad dude. Not only does he hate Christmas, he hates the whole season. Naturally he lives alone at the top of a mountain, which is totally understandable, given his rejection of nearly every aspect of social interaction.

There is Max though, his faithful little dog, who endures his master’s isolationist proclivities and seems happy enough. I’m fairly certain some student somewhere pursuing a post-grad degree in some pop-culture discipline has probably devoted months and months researching the differences between Max and Snoopy, the too-cool-for-fools beagle in “Peanuts” lore.

Neither dog has any spoken lines, but both are crucial to the advancement of the plot.

But when it comes to acting, Max’s performance as the Grinch makes his way down Mount Crumpett to Whoville just isn’t in the same league as Snoopy’s mockery of Lucy, his various roles in the Christmas play and the over-the-top way he decorates his house for the season.

“Lights and display contest!” Charlie Brown wails. “Win money, money, money! Even my own dog has gone commercial.”

Money, that’s what links most Christmas specials, whether it’s a cheesy Hallmark Channel offering or something based on Scripture.

My wife joined me in the sun room as I was decorating the tree the other night. This was rather unusual for her because, like the Grinch, I tend to isolate myself from the world when I’m working on something important.

But I welcomed her nonetheless, because, well, I had pretty much just thrown every string of lights into a box last winter and they were clotted and intertwined into an unholy mess. I knew better, of course, but at the time I was taking everything down in early February, I just wanted to stash it all away in the garage and worry about untangling stuff later. Trust me, this was a very bad decision. Some shortcuts are just basic laziness.

My wife just shook her head, smiled and offered to help me. This is what she does. She loves me despite my litany of shortcomings.

As she sat on the love seat and began the laborious task of helping separate each strand from the ball of confusion, she noticed the TV was playing “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“It’s on tonight?” she said, knowing that after being played in heavy rotation every holiday season decades ago, now it airs only once a year.

“No,” I said. “It’s the DVD you gave me a few years ago.”

So as George Bailey’s life goes from bad to worse, we finally got the lights untangled and tested them. Of course half of them had to be tossed because I lack the skill to pull off that repair solution you see advertised, the one that includes a special tool that makes it possible to bring the dead back to life.

Speaking of miracles, the scene in which George’s daughter is sick with a fever was playing. Seems Zuzu caught a cold walking home from school and was in bed, recovering, having been seen by a doctor earlier that day.

You may or may not believe this, but there was a time when physicians made what were known as “house calls.” Seriously.

I can remember this happening more than once when I was a child, and it blows my mind to consider how commonplace it was. We weren’t rich or prominent or powerful. We were just one family among hundreds of others, and this was not unusual.

As far as how much they charged for such a service, I have no way of knowing, but my guess is that it was a nominal fee, especially if it happened during the holidays. “It’s a Wonderful Life” requires a certain suspension of disbelief including the existence of guardian angels, but to me, the house call is even more fantastic.

But it, like so many of its brethren, revolves around money; in this case, it’s $8,000 that has gone missing.

In “A Christmas Carol,” Dickens writes that the Yuletide is a time for finding yourself a year older but not an hour richer, and he refuses to give to charitable causes: “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses.”

Even “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” hinges on a Christmas bonus that fails to materialize, forfeiting Clark Griswald’s dream of installing a swimming pool in his back yard.

But the Grinch gets it right: “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

These days the holiday season begins before Halloween, closer to back-to-school time. It’s big business. Money makes it happen.

About the best you can do is listen to Linus as he recites the story of the nativity, a scene which makes “Charlie Brown” the best of them all.

Mike Dewey can be reached atCarolinamikeD@aol.com or 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. Find him on Facebook.