A Christmas Story: Nostalgia and Traditions
with
Mia Burke, Ian Carmack, and Micah Carmack
LISTEN HERE
Transcript
Mia:
Welcome to Bible + Pop Culture’s December Edition where we’re talking about all things nostalgia and tradition. Tonight I'm meeting here talking with my two brothers, Ian and Micah, and tonight we’re going to talk as a set of siblings about A Christmas Story and the whole idea of nostalgia and why A Christmas Story. Why is that our family’s tradition and why is that what TBS has chosen to play every year and what people gravitate towards. So welcome, sit back, relax as we take apart A Christmas Story.
First, let’s dive into that whole idea that we are nostalgic beings. Why is that? Why do you think that us as humans gravitate towards certain things? That we paint it a certain way, whether it was that or not.
Micah:
I think it grounds us to the things that are important to us, like family. It gives us reminders of what we value and can serve as a reason to continue our involvement with each other.
Mia:
I think that’s really true. Culturally, we all just live in different places. I mean back in the day you never went more than two miles from home and now everyone lives in my other states much less other countries. It is grounding.
Ian:
Nostalgia itself I would say, what are we really nostalgic about? It's always generally about good things, things that make you feel good, things to make you so happy. You're not really nostalgic about bad things that happen in your life so I think it brings up good feelings for you. It brings up good memories of the past, like Micah said, with family. And usually what it gravitates around us is good memories that you had in the past with your family and it just makes people feel good.
Mia:
But I think that brings up the next point. Is memory even reliable? We create these nostalgic sentiments around a Christmas tree, or a decoration, or like in this case: a movie. Was it even good? Is our memory even reliable? And why do we choose to make things that maybe weren’t good, good?
Micah:
It depends on what you mean by reliable. What is reliably doing? Because I think a lot of times we tend to feel nostalgic about certain things and we try to recapture lightning in a bottle when it comes to the things that we're nostalgic for because not necessarily we want to relive a memory but because we want to relive a feeling. And it's that feeling, the first time watching A Christmas Story, or the first time sitting around as a family this Christmas of that Christmas, you're trying to recapture a feeling that was there and it's not necessary all the time to do the same traditions, but we as human beings love memories. Because they don't necessarily have inherent meaning other than how they make us feel.
Mia:
Why is it that we picked these random things to hang on to as tradition. What makes the cut? And who is the keeper of tradition? In our own family tradition as we watch A Christmas Story. So why is it I wonder, that that made the cut, as what we continue to do for 25 years?
Ian:
I think it's got a lot to do with the family structure of who they are. And we as kids, mostly of the 80s and 90s, and technology. It was a movie. It was a movie we got to sit down and watch anytime we wanted to during the Christmas holidays. It being a good movie helped for us that we thought it was a good movie and it was funny. We just did it over and over again and it brings back those good feelings of sitting around getting to watch a movie, late at night when you probably would have normally been in bed by then- at that hour. And just to me I guess it's just the fact we got to watch TV, basically.
Micah:
It has broader appeal. There's been tons of movies that we sat around and watched as a family andI think this one stuck, because for us (the children of the family) at the time it was creating nostalgia. For people like our mom, it was reflecting on nostalgia. And so, there’s this broader appeal being set at the time that it was, the forties or whatever, and I think it has a kind of more mass appeal because it does more for more people. You sat down to watch Jingle All the Way and very niche movie that's only going to appeal to very few people who were the right age to see it at the right time, but this one I think the way it was structured and it a comes across as classic in terms of what the subject matter, what it deals with its, its innocence and I think it just has a broader appeal that is kind of more timeless.
Ian:
It didn't alienate anybody. I guess it's kind of what you're saying too. It didn't alienate, like you said, Jingle All the Way, I think that movie was about going out and getting more specific robot toy or something. 45 year olds at the time aren’t going to relate to that, but like you said everybody can relate to the story that A Christmas Story portrays..
Micah:
And everybody has a family, whereas certain movies you know they don't always have situations and characters that you can relate to. But I think in this in this sense, whether you had a family like Ralphie's family, or whether you just wanted a family like Ralphie's family because it just had this appeal to it like this you wanted to live in this world at least for an hour 45 minutes or however long the movie is.
Ian:
Well, the situation of the movie too was also who didn't dream about one thing they wanted for Christmas and wanted to go tell Santa what they wanted and wanted to tell their moms and they want to have their mom say back, “What? That's great!” That you didn't have that fear of telling their parents, “Well I want this toy.” And they're like, “No you can't have that, it's a little too dangerous” or whatever it may be. It’s too old for you. I think everybody can relate to the certain situations that were in that movie.
Mia:
And who didn’t have the Bumpus hound situation at least once in their life?
Basically the gist of the movie is Ralphie remembering his childhood. And the question, tying this back to memory is, Ralphie looking back at his childhood. Is he reliable? Is it truthful or is it nostalgia? And I think it's fun to look back at that. Let’s talk a little bit about that scene, the opening where he’s looking through the toy store window, and he's just looking at all these beautiful things that are available this year and we kind of talked a little bit about in our own experience getting the JC Penney's catalog and doing the same thing. Making our wish-list and what we are going to ask for. Can you talk a little bit about what that brings to each of us individuals?
Ian:
It's a good question too- do you really remember going into the toy store in the mall when we were kids and looking around and saying, “Wow this they've decked this place out this is the most amazing display of toys ever seen in my life?” But if you were able to time travel and go back there as an adult, it's just a bunch of cardboard painted red and green. It's not that magical, it's just a store. But when you're eight years old, seven years old going in that same story like, “Wow, this place is amazing I can't believe they did this just for Christmas!” And I kind of see your point about how we might have blown things up in our mind when we’re a certain age as compared to where we are today as adults.
Micah:
Yeah, eight year olds don't really distinguish between the magic of Christmas and the over-commercialization of capitalism, and trying to sell as many things as possible. They don't distinguish that because they live in a world that's more innocent and looking through the window of a toy store means possibility. It means there's mystery, there's all these thoughts about what am I going to get for Christmas…
Mia:
Anticipation…Do you have any memories from our childhood of anticipating Christmas …
Ian:
Not in the same thread of thought that we were just talking about. I remember an antidote of when we were younger, I might have been six or seven years old maybe even five, just how enormous I thought our Christmas tree was and how shiny and every night I used to lay underneath it before the presents got put under and looked straight up through it. And thought it would stretch to the stars, that it would just seem so big. But you get the same size Christmas tree now and you're like, “Well, it could be bigger.” Just in that same line of thought you blow things out of proportion, in a good way, I mean I guess looking back on it it's a good thing that you made everything so magical in your life at that age. When you're older your kind of just, it just kind of levels out.
Micah:
Yeah I agree. I try really hard to think about the gifts I had received waking up Christmas morning every year and I and I honestly I come up short. I don't know- there's a handful of gifts that I can remember getting. Being so stoked, but everything else just kind of faded away, but what I do remember that carries on till today, is the appreciation for the simple things. Like Ian said, you know just looking up at a tall Christmas tree. Like I remember our grandparents used to have bubble lights and I used to sit under the tree and stare at the bubble lights for hours and that has continued into my adulthood where I've created this obsession over I have to have my bubble be the first thing that comes out on Christmas, and it's just to me like it's so simple and so I don't know like there's there's so much meaning for me personally wrapped up in this string of lights with a little bit of liquid in a tube. But for some reason, all of the good feelings that I have about what is Christmas and what is family it wrapped up in these these small little things that I can then take every year and take out of a Rubbermaid bin and put up and immediately be transported back to a time when I initially got that feeling for the first time.
Ian:
Would it be fair to say that you would remember, let's go with the gifts and maybe even some more elaborate memories, would you remember more the gifts and things you got at a very young age as opposed to your teenage years? Do you think you have a better record collection of like things you've gotten for Christmas in your younger years because it was for all intensive purposes of it’s newer it was more exciting it was grandiose when you're five, six, secen, eight, nine years old?
Micah:
100%
Ian:
And eleven, twelve, thirteen, it's not as it's not as cool, as you still get cool stuff, but it's not as cool because you didn't go through that for about ten years already.
Micah:
Yeah.
Mia:
And that it’s socks and toiletries at that age as opposed to a bike.
Micah:
Yeah, I completely 100% agree with that, because I was a cynical butt head when I was a teenager and I wanted to sleep in and that the magic of Christmas had worn off because I was only a few years removed, not believing in Santa anymore. It's like there was something lost, I think you're right, there's that magic I think you hold on to those memories a little bit tighter. And so as I got older and had my own family and created my own magic the memories got stronger again.
Ian:
Right, but those memories are directed in a new direction, not for yourself they’re for the memories you’re creating with your new family.
Micah:
Right.
Mia:
And I think it's even interesting if you're looking at the cinematography of the movie. It's played up, it's soft-focus, it's low stakes for the protagonist, it's all those things that was. Or like we had talked about earlier, I think Ian, you pointed out, it's like a conglomeration of what is Christmas all wrapped up in one situation with Ralphie with the Red Ryder BB gun in the movie. I love that.
So let’s talk a little bit about trying to get more into the specifics of the movie. What do you see in Ralphie where he's doing that exact thing, he's looking back on his life, looking back at this one specific incident with the Red Ryder BB gun that he romanticized comedically, romanticized his childhood, romanticized the whole idea of Christmas. Does anything stand out to you particularly?
Ian:
In the very opening shot, when he’s looking into the store window and he sees this amazing, elaborate set of toys in this window. Realistically, did it look like that or do they make it look like that for the movie because he's remembering it so fondly? Or when he when he was fantasizing about having the gun at the breakfast table and he would shoot Black Bart and all his little minions that's something he held on to it because he's romanticizing it, fantasizing, and justifying his reason for having the gun, the BB gun, to begin with. So yeah, I think it would be kind of fun, if it was a true story, to ask the guy, “Did the store window really look like that or you think it was your memory of that it made it feel so grandiose and magical?”
Micah:
And throughout the movie I think it's interesting that there's a through-line between why he wants this specific toy, this BB gun, and in later scenes it shows him some daydreaming about becoming a hero and throughout the rest of the movie he know he's put up at odds with the school bully and eventually he's overcome with this anger. So he lashes out at the bully and I think, kids tend to gravitate towards playthings that have to do more with what they're wanting out of life at that moment. If you're a sporty kid, you're probably going to ask for a football. But Ralphie felt fairly powerless, he had to take care of his little whiny brother, and had the school bullies to contend with. So he's going to daydream about defeating Black Bart with his trusty Red Ryder BB gun.
For me, now that I think about it, I’m sure plenty of toys that I asked for growing up had everything to do with where I was in life. I remember my Teddy Ruxpin. He played little tapes and told me little stories. That might be directly influenced by the fact that we grew up in a single parent household. I needed a companion around, like a buddy. In the same way with my 2XL robot, like they performed the same function.
I think there's nostalgia with the things that you ask for as a kid that you don't even realize means so much.
Mia:
I just think it's interesting that all three of us- Ian, you were more like the video games, Micah you too. And me roleplaying with dolls and all three of us are really into story and into human nature- finding why people do what they do. And how we can do that in our lives creatively. That’s a connection I never really made.
What’s really interesting about Ralphie’s memory is looking at the other characters. Everybody else is totally over exaggerated. The mom, the dad, the little brother, even Schwartz, and his smark-alkenes, Does anyone want to talk about some of the other characters and maybe why they may be so extreme, which endears them to us, but they are extreme characters.
Micah:
I always appreciated Ralphie’s dad. What makes me laugh the most is what you hear in the movie is definitely not cursing. But you know for a fact that what is happening and in real life he’s cursing up a storm, it's this hilarious “Razza, frazza, rigga ragga…”
Ian:
Micah:
Yosemite Sammin’ it up, it always makes me laugh because he’s endearing, for the most part, over it. When it comes to what’s going on with the kids, whatever, I’m just going to be here reading my paper. But at the same time, he’s so genuine in his affection for his family. So I like him as a character the most.
Ian:
Same, same here. When he’s opening the Fragile Box. He’s so excited, probably more excited than he should have been- throwing the hay out.
Mia
It’s a major award!
Ian:
It’s a major award! Do you know what this is! Its’a leg...this is a lamp! You’re right, those things are probably very overly dramaticized, but it works for the movie. It makes you like the characters. I’m with Micah, I think the dad is one of my favorite characters in the movie.
Mia:
He’s mine too. And I think even interesting when we’re talking about that whole idea of making him the hero, he made his dad the hero. He fought the dragon in the basement with the furnace, his dream was to be in the pit at the Indianapolis 500 when he changed the tires and he timed it. And then the whole fighting off the Bumpus hounds with the turkey.
Ian:
He also saved the day. Ralphie was so distraught, so disappointed that he didn’t get the gun he asked for. Then all the sudden dad says, “Hey, what’s that over there?” And I wonder if in the back of the real Ralphie’s mind, “Ok, Dad put something over there.That wasn’t from Santa.” Dad turned out to be the hero of the movie all along.
Mia:
Isn’t that interesting? I know I’ve had a lot of conversations in my own life, that I truly feel you become an adult when you can forgive your parents for all their shortcomings and just start to look at memory from a new perspective: that they just did the best they could. They just were who they were and I can appreciate them, faults and all. So I love that obviously Jean Shephard, the author of A Christmas Story, got to that point where he could not look at himself as a victim, but actually enjoy being a goofy kid with totally dysfunctional or goofy parents just plodding along. Being total normal people of their time with their flaws.
Micah:
There was no malice in Ralphie’s perspective towards his mom for making him eat the bar of soap. Of course that was what I was going to get, because I said something I shouldn’t have said. But I like the retrospective of looking back at a time period, from an adult’s perspective. Because if you would have asked Ralphie, or any one of us growing up at the time, oh yeah, my mom is the worst person on the planet- she stuck a bar of soap in my mouth. I'm going to run away from home. We can we can look back at that in our thirties and forties and laugh because we realize how dumb we were as kids. That's what I think I appreciate about the nostalgic nature of this movie is that for Ralphie he may think that the stakes are so high, but we all know better as adults watching this movie.
Ian:
Yea. I’ll just add on to your point there too, they did a good job with balance in that aspect too. Because yes, his mom caught him doing something bad and she put a bar soap in his mouth, but she also didn't tell the dad great detail about the fight he had with Scott Farkus. There was a level of okay, Mom did this, but she also did this. She was this person and this person. He didn’t just let it hang as “Mom put bar soap in my mouth and I can't stand that.”
Micah:
Yeah, and I love how dad got away with not having to do any sort of punishment himself.
Ian:
Right, right!
Micah:
Just let mom know so she could just dole it out.
Mia:
And she could just dangle it over the kids, “When your dad gets home!” Knowing he never was going to do anything.
Looking in your memories, what's your best Christmas memory? If you were looking back on your own life?
Ian:
I would say, I think we talked about this before, but at a very young age, probably seven, six or something like eight, maybe eight. Anyway, it was a big Star Wars Christmas. I got the big Millennium Falcon ship and a bunch of little guys and I even got some, I think, some Transformers that year to talk about a completely 80s kid. That's where it's at- Star Wars toys of Transformers. But yeah that one was good and that was close, it's hard to remember, but it was close to that time period where I was talking about how I can't believe how big of a tree we have and all the tinsel and everything. And everything was sparkly, all magical and we didn't live in the coldest climates, we don't, South Mississippi. But it didn't matter if it was 75 degrees outside, it still felt like Christmas, it almost to you would feel colder that more than waking up even though it wasn't. And that could just be the memory thing you were talking about- is it good or is it bad? Is it right or wrong? I don't know if it was right or wrong, but it felt to me like it was definitely ten degrees cooler those Christmas mornings and they all have been, in our part of the country. So yeah, that was probably one of the best ones as far as toy-wise, I'm sure they were better ones I can think of as far as family involvement and things like that. But yeah, from a childhood perspective that was probably the best one I had.
Mia:
I like when we were talking earlier in that scene when the kids are coming down the stairs. It's everything that Christmas was supposed to be. We kind of meld these memories together like you said, you can't really distinguish what Christmas that was, when you look back at your childhood Christmas that's what you think about. It's just a melding of that's what because it was what it was supposed to be.
Do you have a scene that is really endearing to you or a favorite scene in A Christmas Story?
Ian:
I think the one Micah was describing when you come down the stairs and you see the glorious tree, and the truck full of presents underneath and the kids are so excited and the parents are like, “Okay, let's just sit down and let them do their thing and ravage and then we'll get started as a family.” I think that really hit all of the good marks for me.
Mia:
How about you Micah?
Micah:
That scene in particular, there’s something about the old school decoration and the giant lightbulbs does it for me, it hits all of the good marks for me. I also really like the scene in the mall where it starts off with the Wizard of Oz characters and then Ralph standing in line to see Santa. That huge set with a giant slide, a Santa side with Santa mountain and he's standing at the top. I’ve never seen that in real life, but I always wanted an experience it like that. But I really appreciated that scene because I could feel the impatience that Ralphie he was experiencing standing in that line, having to talk to this weird kid…
Ian:
He was on a time crunch.
Mia:
“I like the Wizard of Oz”
Ian:
The mall was closing.
Mia:
That weird kid- “I like the Wizard of Oz.” Get away from me kid, I’m thinkin’.
Micah:
And the Witch comes by and Ralphie, “Hey, don't bother me.”
Ian:
“I’m thinkin’.”
Also, Micah brought up a good point the last time we talked too, as a kid we like the presents of it all, the big shiny trees and the old school decorations, but Micah brought up a good point last time we talked, that as an adult I think one of my favorite scenes the movie as well as Micah, said was when they're at the end of the movie and they're sitting in the dark enjoying a glass of wine after the kids have gone to bed, and all that kind of thing. I think that speaks to me as an adult now having my own kid and going through those types of Christmases. Yeah that one too.
Mia:
I think that’s beautiful because as a parent, as an adult, you're just imprinting that memory on and it makes it all worth it. It's like, “this is what it's about.” it's not the presents, not the stuff, imprinting that you know your kids aren’t always going to be that age, or your family's not always going to be here and just wanting to hold on to that.
Micah:
I've had just as many good Christmas Eve's as I've had Christmas mornings. I think that's equally as important when it comes to creating memories that you can hold on to for a lifetime. Me and Ian have had a number of Christmas Eves as an adult that I think back just as fondly on as I do waking up the next morning and watching the kids tear up the presents. Because we were able to have that bonding time we are able to just be family, instead of the chaos that is Christmas morning. And cooking breakfast…
Ian:
The calm before the storm…
Micah:
...and that's what's beautiful about Christmas, there is a calmness to it and we never really had snow growing up in the South, but like Ian said before, for some reason it always just felt like tonight might be the night it does. it's just because there's a quietness to the air and that's what I've grown to really appreciate as an adult looking back at these times that quietness where you can share as a family and there's no rush to get any older.
Mia:
I love how you wrapped it up last time we talked Micah. You said, “Why we keep having the same tree, the decorations, the movies... they hold in place to keep the feelings in the memories in place because we can't rely on our memory.” I thought that was really good.
Micah:
I mean, yeah, they look cool. I really appreciate a good Christmas tree, but there was a real pain for me when we got a new tree because the last one got way too busted. We're beyond buying real trees anymore so we get fake plastic ones. I had that fake plastic one for so long and I really did get bummed out when we threw it away. It was like we infused it with six or seven Christmases worth of memories, and it's not that things have to hold that space for us but it's something about letting an object hold memories is very human. It takes a little bit of a pressure off of us to remind ourselves of those things and instead we have to object we can rely on, for however many years, to “Oh yeah, that's right…”
Ian:
I'm willing to bet that in probably 90% of households Christmas items, Christmas decor, Christmas decorations are probably some of the oldest things that people own. I would almost bet on it.
Micah:
I will too, ya.
Ian:
I mean there's stuff that our family still owns and it's only until it gets busted out and then I'm whisked away to when I was five when I like, “Wow, the elf train!” Cool! That’s right. All of a sudden there's a flood of memories. Like, oh yeah, remember when we used to listen to the John Denver Muppets album…
Mia:
Yes! Run, run, reindeer!
Micah:
And that stuff is not nowhere in my brain...
Ian:
Until you see it...like that trying to find your apple on Ooma’s tree.
Mia:
So true. Before we end, any best lines from the movie?
Micah:
Besides the obvious ones, the ones that appear on t-shirts.
Ian:
“Only I didn’t say fudge.”
Mia:
My favorite, favorite line is the one when the dad can't even speak because he's gathering the broken pieces of the lamp and he grumbles, just need to walk away. It's the best scene of the movie.
Ian:
He can’t get anything out but he says, “Not a finger!”
But I think the best part of that entire scene was Ralphie was interjecting his memories saying, “I can't be sure, but I think I heard the sound of TAPS being played.”
Micah:
One of my favorites is a moment where the dad has legitimate sympathy for Ralphie and he says,”He looks like a pink nightmare!” He knows Ralphie doesn’t want to wear that pink bunny suit.
Ian:
No he does not. “He looks like a deranged Easter Rabbit.”
Mia:
That’s awesome. Well, thank you both so much for taking this trip down memory lane for both us as a family as well as memory in light of A Christmas Story the movie. Thank you so much. Thankful for you guys as my brothers and thankful for you spending your night with me tonight.
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