When A Christmas Story was first released in November 1983, the film wasn’t immediately the cultural phenomenon that we know it as today. It made a modest amount of money and was gone from most theaters by the time Christmas arrived. In what feels like a completely different lifetime, A Christmas Story found a second life when it was released on home video and earned television syndication. TBS’s 24-hour marathon was the law in my parents’ household. At 8 p.m. every Christmas Eve, after all party activities came to a halt, the family would gather around the television and hold communion, as the MGM lion’s roar beckoned our attention and Jean Shepherd’s narration transported us to some familiar, mesmerizing winterland in 1940s Middle America.
