I have a lot of fond recollections stemming from
A Christmas Story, that 1983 film about nine-year-old Ralphie Parker (delightfully played by Peter Billingsley) and his ever-hapless quest to obtain a Red Ryder air rifle. I was in fourth grade when this movie came out and we - Mom and Dad, my sister, and my best friend Chad and I - saw it on its opening day, at the movie theater at the old Carolina Circle Mall in Greensboro. A few weeks later our Cub Scout troop made an outing one Saturday and saw it, so
A Christmas Story is the first movie that I saw more than once during its theatrical run.
Then a few months later, in the weeks leading up to my tenth birthday, Dad started hinting that he had a special present for me. He wouldn't tell me anything about it. Mom did tell me that he had told her and that she had thought it was going to be a real treat. Well, we had my birthday party at Roll-a-Bout skating rink in Eden, and almost my entire class came. The last present to unwrap was from Dad, and my anticipation by then had intensified dramatically. I took the wrapping off at one end and saw the word "Daisy" and knew instantly what it was.
It was indeed an official A Christmas Story edition Red Ryder air rifle. With a compass in the stock and that thing that tells time. And when my classmates saw it they all started singing "You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out!"
What a beautiful time that was, for all of us.
I still have that Red Ryder rifle, too. More than forty years after Dad gave it to me. It's in excellent physical condition and a few years ago I got off a few shots from it. It works perfectly. It, along with the telescope that I got for Christmas in 1982, are very precious artifacts from my childhood, and I've kept them in great working order all this time.
I don't yet own a "major award" but it's safe to say that my life, especially at this time of year, has been touched by this movie. In some profound ways and others, more subtle. And with growing older has come ever-fresh appreciation for A Christmas Story. And maybe it's because I'm a life-long student of history...
This is truly a special film and that it is set in 1940 makes it even poignant. 1940 was the last Christmas that America got to have before the attack on Pearl Harbor. That event marked the United States' final and irrevocable entry into world affairs. After that attack, nothing was the same anymore. We became a very different people. We had to. There was no choice but to "grow up" and accept that we had a role to play in the matters of mankind.
A Christmas Story is not just a tale about one family. It's about who we all were as the greater American family. A Christmas Story depicts one boy's playful plight in the final days of American innocence. There would be no Christmas like that again, ever. That was the last Christmas that a kid like Randy could get a toy such as a metal zeppelin, symbol of German industry that it had become.
I've wondered sometimes what happened to the characters of A Christmas Story the next Christmas, as people from sea to shining sea prepared to go to war full-bore. What a completely different holiday it would have been for each of them. The Parkers and their neighbors emerged from the Great Depression seemingly none the worse for wear. How would their holiday be with the gloom of global conflict hanging over their house on Cleveland Street?
That last shot of Ralphie holding his beloved Red Ryder air rifle, when he says that it was the best Christmas present he ever got... he's not kidding. When he tells us that, he's really saying to us that this was the final time he got to have Christmas with childlike wonder and that his BB gun is a precious relic of that time in his life. I haven't seen the recent sequel but it wouldn't surprise me if Ralphie kept his Red Ryder after all these years, as a sacred trophy of his childhood.
A Christmas Story is a movie about who we were at our very best, before the larger world intruded upon our relative peace and calm. It is a memorial to a bygone era of American society that there has been no going back to. But I like to think that there is still a bit of that spirit at work amongst us. Movies like A Christmas Story play a part in keeping the flame going. And it is for that reason which I believe makes A Christmas Story a true classic film.
In the end, A Christmas Story is about something wonderful we once had, and have lost along the way. But I like to think that somehow, we might still have it again.
