a christmas story

Chris Knight's avatar

My family and I saw A Christmas Story on its opening day in 1983, and I saw it again a few weeks later with my Cub Scout pack.  Every holiday season I wind up watching it at least once or twice.  And I’ll forever treasure the Red Ryder air rifle that Dad gave me for my tenth birthday.  This movie is as near and dear to me as this sort of thing is likely to be.

When it was announced that there was a sequel coming and that most of the original cast was returning, my curiosity was aroused.  What would it be like to see grown-up Ralphie with a family of his own?  I was looking forward to finding out.  A Christmas Story Christmas was released two years ago and for various reasons I haven’t been able to watch it during the holiday season, when it’s meant to ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

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 ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

A Christmas Story, the classic film of Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) who pines for a Red Ryder BB gun in his stocking in Indiana circa 1940, was released twenty-five years ago today, on November 18th 1983…

“How about a nice football?”

I saw it twice in theaters when it came out. First Mom and Dad took my sister, my best friend Chad and I to see it, and then two weeks later our Cub Scout troop watched it together. Good times!

In honor of today’s occasion, this evening leg lamps will be aglow in living room windows across America....

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