My review of "A Christmas Story Christmas" originally published in the "Junction City Union" back in 2022. I reposted it here because it's not available online anymore. I made a few slight corrections from the original review, and added some imagery. Cheers!
Mike Sellman
3.5 out of 4 stars
I believe I'm among a large audience who hasn't let a Christmas season go by without watching the 1983 holiday comedy, "A Christmas Story" at least once. I've been doing it for approximately the last 35 years. It seems like a movie people either love or dislike, the latter slandering the film with comments about it being "too silly" or "largely overrated." Regardless, I still make it a point to watch it every holiday season.
Never did I think I would see the actors from "A Christmas Story" return to their roles for a follow-up film.
But they did in the sequel, "A Christmas Story Christmas," released Nov. 17, 2022 on HBO Max.
The original movie, "A Christmas Story," directed by Bob Clark and released in 1983, is based on the books, "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" and "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters" by humor writer Jean Shepherd who passed away in 1999. It's also narrated by Shepherd who makes a cameo. Look for him. He's in there.
Set in fictional Hohman, Ind. in the 1940s, the comedy holiday movie tells the story of young Ralphie Parker (played by Peter Billingsly) and his quest for a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.
Billingsly is back playing Ralphie after nearly 40 years in this sequel.
This continuing story takes place in 1973 - 33 years after young Ralphie got his BB gun.
Ralphie, now a struggling writer, lives in Chicago with his wife, Sandy (Erinn Hayes), their son Mark (River Drosche) and youngest child, Julie (Julianna Layne).
He has taken a year off to write his first novel. He's been trying to have his manuscript published, only to be turned down by publisher after publisher.
In the midst of this struggle, and as Christmas approaches, Ralphie gets a call from his mother (Julie Hagerty) with some tragic news. His father, (played in the original film by Darren McGavin) has died.
Grieving, Ralphie's family heads to his childhood home in Hohman to be with his mother.
When they arrive, Mrs. Parker asks Ralphie to write his father's obituary. On top of that, despite the tragic loss of his "old man," she wants him to take up the task of making Christmas wonderful for the family in memory of his dad who had a great affinity for the holiday season.
Of course, in the midst of Ralphie reacquainting with his old friends at the local bar owned by his childhood buddy Flick, played again by Scott Schwartz, and getting ready to celebrate Christmas, small yet unthinkable disasters descend upon him and his plans.
Jean Shepherd is one of the best satirical story tellers in American story telling history. His stories amazingly depict the fondly remembered yesteryear of Americana with all its imperfections and disappointments, all with charming relatability.
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| Peter Billingsly as 'Ralph Parker' in "A Christmas Story Christmas." |
Shepherd's work doesn't mock. He just sees through the glisten of America's bygone "golden" era.
No matter how wonderful, warm and memorable the American yesteryear is, Shepherd doesn't fail to point out the vexations, great and small, that came with day-to-day life of the 1940s on. This wit comes through enjoyable well and clear in "A Christmas Story Christmas."
It's an element that makes the original movie well loved.
While the movie is certainly a tribute to actor Darren McGavin, it also pays a great amount of tribute to Shepherd. That doesn't surprise me as his children, Randall and Adrian Shepherd, are co-producers of "A Christmas Story Christmas."
In the movie, Ralphie sets up his writing space up in the attic of his boyhood home on Cleveland Street.
He finds his old typewriter and sets it up. The scenario works as a means to call back old memories seen in the first movie.
Of course, now those "memories" are covered in dust and cobwebs. Thankfully, these call-backs aren't overplayed with gushy nostalgic sentimentalities.
Rather, the first movie is called back to memory here and there, from time to time, through props, jokes, or similar shots as seen in the part one.
Yet, it doesn't completely depend on part one to tell a new and just-as-relatable story.
Though the first movie doesn't end on any kind of cliffhanger. the new movie manages to say something meaningful.
Some of the jokes and references are updated. Ralphie's daydreams for instance, as seen in part one, is a habit continues into his adult years.
One such fantasy Ralphie has is of himself winning the Pulitzer Prize. He has this fantasy while in the office of a publisher who's rejecting his work.
What writer hasn't fantasized about their work winning a Pulitzer amidst a standing ovation?
Other scenes are updated, such as Ralphie bribing a potential publisher with Christmas candy. a habit he practiced when trying to score a good grade on his writing assignment from his schoolteacher, Miss. Shields, in the first film.
Such callbacks are mere fan service rather than depending on the humor and scenes from part one. Other parts in the film feel like a Hallmark Holiday movie with its Christmas sentimentality.
Still, new jokes are written in, such as a running gag with wives constantly calling Flick's Tavern looking for their husbands. When the phone rings, the entire bar goes quiet. This is the kind of humor Shepherd is known for.
As "A Christmas Story" didn't perform well at the box office upon its release, making a sequel comes across as a big gamble. But it has been tried several times before.
Once Turner Network Television (TNT) started running its 24-hour marathon of "A Christmas Story" around Christmas beginning in the late 1990s, the movie's modest and low-profile quality quickly drowned in the saturation of commercialism and merchandise seen today that likely led to this very sequel. Funny how that works as the original satirizes the commercialism of Christmas.
"A Christmas Story" is not the first adaptation of Shepherd's works about Ralphie and his family.
A television film based on based on Shepherd's stories about Ralphie, called "Phantom of the Open Hearth," aired on the PBS anthology series "Visions" in 1976.
In 1982, another television film, called "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters" aired on another PBS series, "American Playhouse." It stars a young Matt Dillon as Ralph.
In 1985, "The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski" also aired on "American Playhouse." Since it was released two years after "A Christmas Story," some might argue that this is the first sequel (technically) to "A Christmas Story" though the movie doesn't make any reference to the film.
In 1988, the movie "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss," starring Jerry O'Connell as Ralphie, and based on a short story by Shepherd published in "Playboy" magazine, aired on the Disney Channel. It later had a VHS release.
"A Christmas Story" director Bob Clark teamed up with Shepherd a second time to make an official sequel called "It Runs in the Family." Released in theaters in 1994, the film stars Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen, and Kieran Culkin as Ralphie. It's also narrated by Shepherd just like the first movie.
It picks up in the summer after the events of "A Christmas Story."
"It Runs in the Family" was released on DVD under the title, "My Summer Story." 
Unlike the titles I just mentioned, the 2012 straight-to-DVD movie, "A Christmas Story 2," debatably billed as the "official sequel," isn't based on any of Shepherd's writings. Rather, it pulls so much inspiration and content from the original movie, audiences might as well skip it and watch the first film. The less said about it, the better.
Though "A Christmas Story Christmas" feels more like a film for the fans of the first movie, it certainly isn't a forgettable sequel. The effort and consideration to tell a continuing story to a movie that never needed a sequel to begin with is very present.
It's not as original a sequel like "My Summer Story." Still, it manages to be distinct enough.
The movie had me laughing at times just as hard as I do when watching part one. Its story is as empathetic as "A Christmas Story." It has the spirit of a quiet film despite all the commercialism attached to the franchise. The sequel does depend on the nostalgia, but the story works by itself.
Ralphie now working as a writer captures Shepherd's spirit. It also captures his humor and irony. This film maintains the agony of childhood like the first one did and mixes it with the pressures of adulthood. It ties it all together beautifully with its ending that is surely a meaningful bow not to the franchise, but to Shepherd, which I don't doubt he would be proud of.
While I have you here. check out my other posts about films based on Jean Shepherd's stories about Ralphie 🎄
"A Christmas Story" (1983)
"The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski" (1985)
"Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" (1988)
"It Runs in the Family" (1994)
"A Christmas Story 2" (2012)
"The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski" (1985)
"Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" (1988)
"It Runs in the Family" (1994)
"A Christmas Story 2" (2012)
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