This past week my family and I continued what has become a yearly ritual. It has become a tradition for us to gather together over the Thanksgiving break to watch ‘A Christmas Story’. The movie is one of my all-time favorites and has also become one my kids love as well. They look forward to seeing it every year and it isn’t unusual for them to begin talking about the movie weeks prior to our actually sitting down and watching it. Watching the movie has become the event that officially kicks off the Christmas Season for us.
The plot for ‘A Christmas Story’ centers around nine year old Ralphie Parker’s quest to obtain a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. While the story revolves around Ralphie’s BB gun mania, the movie is a wonderful look back into what life was like for a typical, though slightly eccentric, American family living in the Midwest during the 1940s. The director, Bob Clark, created a veritable time capsule with this movie. Vintage toys, radios, autos, and furnishings provide, by all accounts, an accurate portrait of what 1940s Indiana looked like.
The movie was released in November of 1983. To be perfectly honest, I do not remember it at all. Much like Frank Capra’s ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, it was a modest, at best, box office success. Though loved by critics it was largely ignored by the movie going public. I first took note of the film when I realized it starred Darren McGavin. I was a huge fan of ‘Kolchak: The Nightstalker’ as a kid and have been willing to watch anything starring Darren McGavin ever since. He was brilliant as the father of young Ralphie and, though I loved his turn as Kolchak, I must admit this may be his finest work. The scene where he tries to put the pieces of his “major award”, the famous leg lamp, back together is a classic.
While ‘A Christmas Story’ provides dozens of genuinely hysterical moments, I think the reason the movie has become a classic is how it reflects a simpler time. There is a gentleness to the movie that isn’t often captured successfully by actors or directors. My two favorite scenes, both near the end of the movie, illustrate this quite well. The scene where Ralphie is directed to an unseen gift, behind the desk, by his father really touches me. Ralphie’s joy at discovering he has received his beloved Red Ryder BB gun after all is surpassed only by the thrill his father gets from watching his boy open his dream gift. I didn’t really understand this until I became a father myself. The second of my two favorite scenes is the second to last scene of the movie where the mother walks into a darkened living room illuminated only by the lights of the Christmas tree. After turning on the radio, which plays Christmas music softly, she is called over to the couch by her husband who is watching a beautiful snow falling outside the window. She sits down on the arm of the couch next to him. They then put their arms around each other as they watch the snow gently fall outside. It is the one scene in the movie where the mother and father are seen alone. It conveys, in a very simple but elegant manner, how much they love one another. Truly, at that moment, all is right with the world.
If you have never seen ‘A Christmas Story’ I highly recommend giving it a viewing. I can almost guarantee that you will want to watch it at least once a year thereafter. Who knows? Maybe it will become a Christmas tradition for your family as well.
Until we visit again, remember not to shoot your eye out, stick your tongue to a flag- pole in sub-freezing weather, or stand beneath those dangerous icicles (they’ve been known to kill people, you know).
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