Dec 23, 2018 4 min read

CLARKSVILLE–For many people, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without Ralphie and his Red Ryder carbine action, 200-shot range model air rifle.

Ralphie, of course, hails from “A Christmas Story.” When the movie first arrived in theaters amid the 1983 holiday season, it did so-so business as it played alongside the likes of “Yentl,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Silkwood” and “Scarface.” It also earned a less-than-glowing review in The New York Times, with critic Vincent Canby saying that “there are a number of small, unexpectedly funny moments in ‘A Christmas Story,’ but you have to possess the stamina of a pearl diver to find them.”

But much like “It’s A Wonderful Life,” another holiday perennial that was also tepidly received when it first appeared, “A Christmas Story” has become an indispensable part of the season for no small number of Americans. And also like “It’s A Wonderful Life,” it’s achieved that status through repeated television showings. The cable channel TNT has made it a fixture of its schedule, and again this year will start showing it around the clock for 24 hours starting at 9 p.m. on Monday.

For anyone who has not yet seen it dozens of times, “A Christmas Story” has Ralphie Parker as an adult recalling a special Christmas when he was 9 years old. He wanted nothing more than the Red Ryder air rifle, despite his mother, a teacher and an in-store Santa warning him that he would shoot his eye out with that particular gift. Other vignettes in “A Christmas Story” find a reading lamp shaped like a woman’s leg ending up in the Parkers’ house, Ralphie and his friends confronting neighborhood bullies and a Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

Writing in Vanity Fair in 2016, Sam Kashner pointed out that “A Christmas Story” was different than “It’s A Wonderful Life” and other holiday movies that preceded it, such as “Miracle on 34th Street” or “White Christmas.” “A Christmas Story,” in Kashner’s estimation, “acknowledged – even relished – the ‘unbridled avarice,’ the commercialism, the disappointments, the hurt feelings, and all-around bad luck that, in reality, often define the merry season. In other words, what real Christmas was like in real families.”

The cult around “A Christmas Story” has grown to such an extent, and is so dedicated, that the house in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland that was used to depict the exteriors of the Parkers’ house has been restored and is now a mecca for “A Christmas Story” fans. The interior now looks like the Parkers’ movie home. Across the street, another house enshrines props and other relics from “A Christmas Story.”

Jennifer Gallagher of Waynesburg visited the house in June with her parents and 6-year-old son. Her son was intrigued by the Red Ryder gun, and was “captivated” by the movie as he saw it unfold on a television in the gift shop. When they came home, and despite the fact that it was summertime, “he was asking to stream the movie.”

“Since then, we have watched the movie numerous times,” Gallagher said. “It has become, and will remain, one of our all-time favorite holiday movies.”

Even though she has yet to make it to the house in Cleveland, Rachel Greenlee’s house in Clarksville is not wanting for “Christmas Story” memorabilia. A longtime fan of the movie – she avidly tunes in to the round-the-clock showings on TNT – Greenlee has “Christmas Story” ornaments, drinking glasses, mugs and T-shirts.

“It’s a sickness,” Greenlee said of her fascination with the movie.

Greenlee wasn’t born when “A Christmas Story” was originally released and, like many other fans, first saw it on television. Why is she so taken with it? It’s the movie’s vision of a holiday season in the 1940s, she explained.

“Everything is so laid back. It’s not the way it is now.”

The same sense of nostalgia drives Liz Rogers’ affection for “A Christmas Story.” The executive editor of the Observer-Reporter has seen it more times than she can count, has made pilgrimages to the house in Cleveland, and her license plate says “LEGLAMP.”

She also has a leg lamp tattoo.

“It’s a fun little flick,” Rogers said. She also pointed out that it reminds her of growing up in a working-class household, when “you looked to Christmas all year to get special things. That is captured perfectly in that movie.”