When my parents first watched the film A Christmas Story some time in the eighties, they were perplexed that a few of their friends were certain the movie would become a Christmas classic. They found the film uncomfortable and weird, and who could blame them? The scenes of rosy-cheeked Ralphie getting kicked down the slide by a disenchanted mall Santa, dropping the f-bomb when he knocks over a hubcap of nuts and bolts, and beating up Scutt Farcus in dirty “city snow” are quite unlike the existing classics. A Christmas Story, to them, paled in comparison to the likes of It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, and White Christmas. At least, this is what they tell my brother and me as our family watches Flick stick his tongue to the pole for the fourth time on Christmas Day. The film, based on the writings of Jean Shepard which were posthumously compiled to create the book A Christmas Story, has become a tradition of its own to my family and many others who cozy up for the Christmas Day marathon.
The book A Christmas Story begins at an automat in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The adult narrator is seated across from a woman wearing a button that reads: “DISARM THE TOY INDUSTRY,” which reminds him of his boyhood days, and one particular Christmas when his heart beat only for the official RED RYDER CARBINE ACTION TWO-HUNDRED-SHOT RANGE MODEL AIR RIFLE. The book exhibits many familiar scenes from the film, but was not published in its existing condition until 2003, twenty years after the film’s release. The book is a compilation of a couple of Jean Shepard’s shorter works, which were published separately, and have been organized into a cohesive “year in the life” of the Parker family. Beginning with Christmastime and ending with Easter, the book is a compelling narrative of boyhood, told with the same dry sarcasm as the film. It is noteworthy that the iconic narrator in the 1983 film is the voice of the book’s author, Jean Shepard. Shepard passed away in 1999, but his legacy continues through the film’s success and the publication of the book A Christmas Story, as well as some of his shorter works.
The legacy Jean Shepard left behind is what brings back readers and viewers year after year. What is so wonderful about this story, what Jean Shepard captured in his writing, is the heart of a child at Christmastime. Set during the depression, Ralphie Parker’s childhood perspective transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, and finds wonder, adventure, and love in the most forgotten of places: at the kitchen table, eating canned vegetables and meatloaf for the umpteenth time that month, in line to visit Santa at the mall, on streets with gray-black snow, in a Christmas gift, carefully picked out by a parent, in a simple feast made spectacular because of its tradition. While other Christmastime stories can lay claim to instilling a sense of wonder, hope, and love in its audience, the awful weirdness of A Christmas Story is, to me, the most wonderful part.
Jean Shepard’s story unapologetically portrays Midwestern middle-class America during the depression without covering its wrinkles and stains. Setting his story in this ordinary world, Shepard proves that the magic of Christmas is not in guardian angels, flying reindeer, or Ghosts of Christmas Past, but in the hearts of those who truly believe. The famed Red Ryder BB Gun exhibits the special love shared between parent and child, and the relentless hope of a child, even at times when all seemed lost.
Merry Christmas!
Rosie Posie 