It's Ann Arbor, Charlie Brown!
“Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel.”
As I write this, I’m confronted with, well, a couple of things. The first is the fact that I probably should have bought gloves before winter hit. The second is the fact that I really should have started studying earlier for my exams — cramming two months of lectures into a weekend of studying was a wildly stupid plan. The third and most prescient thing I’m dealing with is just how different Ann Arbor is past Dec. 10.
My last final is on the latest possible day — Wednesday the 18th — leaving me to wander a half-filled campus while cramming loose-leaf papers into my brain. Ann Arbor takes on a distinctly different feeling in the weeks approaching Christmas. The oranges and reds of October autumn and the browns and yellows of November pre-winter both give way to the distinctly Michigan gray of December. Combine that with the weight of finals and the normally busy Diag turning into a cold ghost town and, suddenly, you can’t recognize the place you’ve been holed up in since September. It’s easy to extract misery from Ann Arbor around this time. I’m cold. I’m worried. I miss my mom. Spending the merriest time of year lonely in a college-less college town is a uniquely upsetting feeling.
Most upsetting, perhaps, is the fact that I’m unsure I’d be happier elsewhere. Growing up, I always felt wrong during Christmas time. For whatever reason, I felt consistently guilty for not being as excited as the people around me. In winter, in December, on Christmas Day, I find myself retreating backward into the snow globe of my own head. I overthink, I sit, I revel in my own thoughts. At least, I usually do that. Sometimes, though, I watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
I grew up watching the “Peanuts” Christmas specials. Despite not growing up Christian, it was still a fixture in my household. The first snow day of the year, my mom and I would sit down and watch the original “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Often, I’d bake premade cookies, hide under a blanket and let the warmth of the film wash over me. When even Charlie Brown (Peter Robbins, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”), the saddest, most self-pitying animated child ever, found himself happy and surrounded by friends on Christmas, I decided that I certainly wouldn’t be the one to out-pity the master. Almost instantly, I found myself reveling in Christmas cheer.
In the years since, “Charlie Brown” has become a beacon of nostalgia in my life. The hand-drawn animation, warm tones and crackling-soft soundscape are, to me, the platonic ideals of childhood. When watching “Peanuts,” it’s impossible to stay an adult. When watching the gang do that silly five-frame dance at the end of the film, I become a child again.
So this year, as the grayness of December in Ann Arbor began to infect me, I knew there was one place I could turn to — “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Of course, I couldn’t watch the film on repeat — I had exams. So I did the next best thing: I listened to the soundtrack.
Though long lauded by a friend of mine as the greatest jazz album of all time, I had never given the Vince Guaraldi Trio album a serious listen. As it turns out, my friend might have been right. It’s a beautiful album, built nearly entirely out of whimsy, distilled cheer and concentrated nostalgia. Children’s choirs and soft piano plucks weave together to form a transportive listening experience. It’s one that can physically lift you out of your body.
Walking around Ann Arbor with the Vince Guaraldi Trio in my ears as opposed to my usual winter playlist (a mixture of annoying millennial LCD Soundsystem rock and pretentious Bob Dylan folk) has resulted in a colossal shift in my attitude. As the sweet piano and hearty jazz fills my heart, the inhuman gray of my surroundings becomes flush with color. I can mope no longer. The snow, once a hazard, now has a near-mystical quality. I still miss my mom, but when listening to the sounds of “Charlie Brown,” it’s like I can hear her. Instead of focusing on the space between the people left, I remain focused on the people who are left.
A few days ago, I went to my friend’s house. He and a few of his roommates were, like me, holdovers into late exam week. They turned on their strung-up Christmas lights, lit up their plastic Christmas tree and put a FCS college football game on the TV. The lights gave off a yellow warmth, and snow fell outside their half-cracked open window. Despite the cold and gray outside, in there, with my friends around me, I was warm.
Senior Arts Editor Rami Mahdi can be reached at [email protected].
