A Christmas Story Story

"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."

- Frank Zappa

Snow can be frightening, ugly, dangerous; it's a beautiful woman with no sense of humor, a silent heart attack in your sleep. It's also the most striking natural event you could ever witness; its transformative powers can disguise an entire landscape as an unrecognizable monochromatic sculpture, masking all imperfections, teasing a fresh start to your surroundings. That's the payoff; the end result of the weird psychedelic metamorphosis of snowfall - particularly at nighttime. Snow absorbs sound, creating a heavy hush even in a populated area, and this tranquility is enhanced by this sorta spellbinding glow generated from the city lights permeating the reflective flakes in the air. Even at 2am the sky remains a bright pink. 

It was on a December night like this in the very early 1990s when I went to McDonald's with my father. I don't remember the circumstances that brought us there - not that it matters now and it certainly didn't matter then; it was almost Christmas and I was getting McDonald's. I remember the sign outside, lit up, standing underneath it: the Golden Arches were still supersized back then before the company became overwhelmed with shame for their place in popular culture. Snowflakes illuminated by the bright yellow "M" zigzagged in the chilly gusts of hamburger-flavored air. Santa was close, Ronald was closer.

It wasn't much warmer inside, preserving the grey slush on the slippery plastic-wood flooring. It didn't matter - one doesn't remove their coat & hat for McDining, it's part of the formal informal wear; the nylon "swish" of my Starter Jacket as I brought each fry to my mouth was the sound design of my setting. And french fries there were; my father and I had a system whereby we'd combine our separate fry orders into one salty potato mountain atop the plastic serving tray - a technique inspired by Louie Anderson. I was going through a short-lived McNugget phase - one I'd never fully revisit on the basis that they're too characteristic of appetizers or sides. But I was also going through a "no condiment" phase, and if you go about trying to get a custom-built burger from McDonald's you'd better be prepared for chaos. The simplicity of dry breaded chicken product is what I required at that time in my life. 

A damp and tired rabble of holiday shoppers were scattered about the dining room, and one booth at the far end was occupied by an unsophisticated TV/VCR setup, awkwardly placed on the table with wires running every which way, disappearing into unseen outlets you never even knew were there. I'd never seen anything like it in a fast food restaurant, before or since, and playing softly on this kinda smallish TV was A Christmas Story, which I'd only ever been kinda peripherally aware of but had never actually seen any of it. And that was pretty typical for this time in history.

When I was a kid, the movie that dominated the December airwaves was It's A Wonderful Life, almost to the point of parody. It wasn't until 1997 that TNT started doing the 24 hour Christmas Story marathon, thus igniting a global phenomenon in just a few years. By 2000 there were action figures and t-shirts and lunch boxes and all the kindsa merchandise that would accompany a hit movie of that year. But that's the gag: it was new to a lotta people, and very suddenly we had this lightning rod of comedy and nostalgia and scenes and quotes that was creating this new kind of joy and mania; the Holiday had been yet again reimagined for a new century by celebrating a film from the 1980s that celebrates Christmas in the 1940s. 

But back at McDonald's in the early 90s it was the purest example of Cult Movie, and somebody (I assume in management) was part of that cult - so much so that they lugged a buncha audio/visual equipment (probably from the backroom where new recruits are shown training videos) out into the goddamn dining area to play their own personal videocassette of what was decidedly not The Grinch or Charlie Brown or Wonderful Life, but a nearly-decade-old commercial flop from 1983. This anonymous Mickey D employee was ahead of the game: they grew up with it, they already had the tradition, they were already hip to Red Ryder and Ovaltine, electric sex and pink nightmares, the Bumpus's dogs and Chinese turkey. My father and I were just left with a story: "Remember that movie with the weird kid that we saw at a McDonald's for some reason?" It made it more hazy & surreal that we weren't able to actually hear or see the picture very well; halfway across the room in a noisy public setting on a 13'' Magnavox playing a worn VHS with tracking problems didn't really draw us into the narrative in the 15 minutes we were in its presence. But within a couple years as Turner Broadcasting decided this was what the world needed, we hooked into it like a spasm of déjà vu: "Hey, I kinda know this movie!" And under uninterrupted circumstances I was able to see it and appreciate it for everything that it is -- and what it is is a lot less superficial than the sight gags and one-liners the culture seemed to latch onto. 

I suppose it's kinda flat and transparent to make the Normal Rockwell comparison, but so few movies manage to be this innocent and lighthearted without drifting off into fantasy or pathos. It's not "timeless" because it's a period piece rooted in a very specific era, and it's not "dated" because nothing about it indicates that it opened alongside Sleepaway Camp or that the #1 song was "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie - that all feels like an entirely different planet. There were no real lessons to be learned or big emotions - it just champions Nostalgia in a nonspecific way. Stuff like Christmas, America, grade school, and the 20th Century are all incidental in the idea of idealizing the past; any past; our past. No childhood is entirely unblemished, unless it's through the lens of movie magic or the pen of Jean Shepherd. Nostalgia is good for art, but it's better for life. We recognize and revere this film not because we pine for our own bygone BB gun or experience some form of gustatory synesthesia of sucking a bar of Lifebuoy; apart from its general overall competence as a well made movie, it's successfully relatable in depicting the moments of genuine joy we experience as a child - whether it's waking up on Christmas morning, participating in a radio contest, or going to McDonald's with your dad.

- Paul