Good Grief!

Let me just say, on December 6th, the date set aside to honor St. Nicholas, that while there is certainly a downside to Christianity preached as a doctrine of guilt and irredeemable sin, there is also a downside to a "warm, safe and feel-good message."

In both cases, people tend to miss the point:

In a twist that might make its round-headed hero exclaim, "Good grief," Charles M. Schulz's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" — the animated television special about love conquering materialism that airs tonight on ABC — now fuels a $1.2-billion-a-year global publishing, merchandising and marketing machine.

Millions of Americans will tune in, as they have every December for 40 years, to watch Charlie Brown and his gang learn that friendship and faith are more important than presents.

And this year, as every year, advertisers clamored to buy time during the cartoon to hype their holiday movies and toys. So many advertisers, in fact, that ABC had to turn some away.

"They chase us for this show," said Geri Wang, ABC's senior vice president for prime-time sales. "It provides a safe, warm and family-feel-good message."

Fortunately, I have a copy I videotaped years ago (in the days of BetaMax, no less! But I had VHS, fortunately), and I can skip the commercials, too. And I still like Peanuts, as I did when I was a child.

But it proves that anything we become comfortable with, fails to challenge us to extend our reach beyond our grasp.