Everyone has their favorite Christmas movie, right?
It's "Home Alone" for some and, for others like my mom, it's "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," but, for me, I've always loved "A Christmas Story" or, as my family has always affectionately called it, "Shoot Your Eye Out."
The movie is about a boy named Ralphie who desperately wants something he doesn't need and gets told he doesn't need it. He still gets it anyway and then it comes back to bite him in the butt as he ends up getting shot in the face! It's a quirky little movie that I willingly and lovingly watch multiple times in a row within a 48 hour period and I've never quite known why.
I don't really identify with Ralph in any way considering I've never really liked guns and I'm much too clumsy to be trusted with a weapon of any sort. I also couldn't relate to how much all of his friends suck and, if I had ever said the f-word as an elementary schooler, my mother would have shoved the Bible in my mouth instead of a bar of soap.
Still, this movie really nails the feeling of a real life Christmas better than any movie I've ever seen and part of that is because it paints a believable and relatable family to love like your own. In fact, the family in this movie is like a spitting image of my own.
My father is a spitfire who knows better than everyone and has a bit of a dirty side that he likes to let out every now and then because it annoys my mother which he, and the rest of us as well, finds amusing.
Ralph, the older brother, is much more like my older sister than he is me; Ralph and my sister both are constantly annoyed by their baby brothers, aware of what they want and will do whatever looks useful to get it, and certainly not above the "innocent" manipulations the mind of a child will think of like sucking up to a teacher, asking Santa for something you know your parents won't allow you to have, having an internal monologue that imagines oneself as a cowboy vigilante, or having a boy blinded by sucking on a bar of soap.
I, on the other hand, was much more like the baby of the family, Randy. He was the precious little brother was coddled, kind of annoying, constantly afraid, and refused to eat anything that wasn't junk food. He also cried like all the time! Even though I am older than he was in the movie, nothing has changed on any of these fronts for me and that's why I relate so much to him.
Ultimately, the movie ends with a happily ever after in a Chinese restaurant with the family eating duck for Christmas after Ralph accidentally shoots himself in the eye. It's a genius ending to a Christmas movie and you can't convince me otherwise.
My Christmas each year revolves not around presents, food, or the birth of a savior baby people call Jesus (even though his name was much closer to what we call Joshua or Yeshua, to be specific) but, instead, watching this movie with my family. It brings us together, causing a lot of laughing and reminiscing as if we're watching old home videos. Thus, "A Christmas Story" makes me feel incredibly warm, the same kind of warmth where you're standing in the snow, looking at Christmas displays, and everything is glowing making you feel like you're not even cold because time has stopped and you're in a winter holiday vacuum because you're having your annual "It's a Wonderful Life Moment" where everything feels okay even though you're kind of falling apart because your life is a mismanaged mess!
At least, that is what I feel like whenever I watch "A Christmas Story."
And it is a Christmas Story, my Christmas Story.
