Snoopycember 1.2: Who Exactly Is Snoopy, Anyway?

Happy, Friday, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, and welcome to the first full post of Snoopycember 2025! I hope you’ve been writing your daily Snoopy poems. If not, I hope you’re at least reading your favorite Peanuts strips, drawing Snoopy murals in Sharpie on your bedroom walls; renaming your children Snoopy #1, Snoopy #2, Snoopy #3, so on; playing Snoopy Mystery Club on your gaming console of choice, watching your favorite Peanuts holiday specials; or however else you are choosing to celebrate the world’s most benevolent and decorated beagle.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about why this time of year is so important to me. And the first reason for that, I suppose, is that this time of year has never really been particularly important to me.

I like the holidays fine. They’re always a little stressful, sure, but I don't have it too bad. No real horrible or bittersweet holiday memories keeping me up at night either. I was raised Catholic, though not too ardently. Christmas Mass was basically the only time we went to church, and I know I wasn’t the biggest fan, but quite frankly, more than anything, I just don’t really remember it. That’s kinda the gist of it—I don’t remember a whole lot from my ostensibly more formative winters. And so while celebrating the various holidays I have always celebrated is usually largely Fine, there is still this permeating feeling of being untethered.

So there’s a bunch of holes in my brain and memory, but do you know what I do remember? The Peanuts gang and that crazy little dog, Snoopy. When I think of the holiday season, I think about watching A Charlie Brown Christmas on cable, sitting on the floor at my grandmother’s house. Or the handmade Peanuts wood cutouts on my parents’ front lawn. I think of the Joe Cool t-shirt I wore every single Friday in the 4th grade and the Snoopy Valentine’s candy tin where I inscrutably stored my NBA-branded cloth elastic headband in middle school. I remember how the two books I had checked out to my school library card all year in the 3rd grade were The Collected Poetry of Edgar Allen Poe and an omnibus of Peanuts Comic Strips. So yes, I know, you don’t have to say it—I’ve been depressed for a while now.

And I think maybe that’s most of the second reason why this time of year is important to me now. Charlie Brown and Snoopy are kind of Jordan and Pippen for weird depressed children. I really felt at home in the common, quiet melancholy of the Peanuts strips. I identified with Charlie’s malaise, his insecurities, his lack of self-esteem, his earnestness and the varying risks/rewards it may bring. I, too, often shouted “Good Grief” under duress. Thankfully, I wasn’t bald, like Charlie. So you might ask, how could you have been sad then? I know, I know. Full head of hair—what else could a kid want. As it turns out, serotonin.

And like Snoopy, I learned to find serotonin in exercising my imagination. Like, Snoopy, the world famous author, I wrote dumb little short stories about life on mars and poems about my limestone rock collection. Like Joe Cool, I tried on more postured selves. Snoopy keeps himself open to invention and reinvention, and it was always really important to me to know that I could too. I couldn’t withstand the melancholy I shared with Charlie Brown, if not for the little acts of creation I admired his dog for.

And so all of these intersecting warm feelings about Snoopy and the Peanuts Gang are what bring us to Snoopycember. I don’t really have any holiday traditions, but I do have this special interest that feels very ingrained into our culture. And if this time of year is to connect with your loved ones and community members, what better source of connection is there than Snoopy? Everyone loves him. Unsurprisingly, I often dress in a lot of Snoopy apparel, and nothing I wear gets as many comments from as broad a range of people as a Snoopy hat or shirt or jacket. The older folks love Snoopy, the kids love Snoopy, everyone loves Snoopy. He is this unifying figure, because he is a symbol of connection, of companionship. A reminder that that companionship and sense of community is what makes everything else bearable. And what better way to spend the holidays then to write some poems about that.

I will leave you with this month‘s first Snoopycember poem. This one is from a prompt asking you to introduce yourself to Snoopy. I hope you like it, and I hope you keep your eye out for the second week of prompts next Monday.