I almost-finished a second one of those waffle-stitch dishcloths last night while watching "A Christmas Story." I have this on dvd despite the fact that usually TBS runs it as a marathon on Christmas eve.

I love the movie. It's one of my favorite Christmas movies, and probably is my favorite of the ones made in the past 50 years or so.

The funny thing is, I grew up some 30-35 years later than Ralphie Parker would have, and yet there are still things in there I relate to...and I just love watching the movie, they did such a good job (I think) of setting the era - the soap-powder boxes on the big porcelain sink in the kitchen, the clothing, the interior colors.

It may be that I like the movie in part because it reminds me of my maternal grandmother's house, where not a lot had changed since the 40s and 50s.

Also, parts of the movie were filmed in and around Cleveland. (At first, I thought the exterior shots of the elementary school just *might* have been the old elementary school in Hudson - where I went to third grade, but now I don't think so, there's no mention of it in the credits). So a lot of the exterior shots are familiar. (Higbee's, I think, is long gone, more's the pity. I don't know that there are very many of those grand old downtown department stores any more but they used to be such a staple, such a common thing. I've written before of going to the big old downtown Akron O'Neil's, both for school-clothes shopping, and also for Breakfast with Santa and the "Santa's Wonderland" thing (a walk through thing with animatronic deer and stuff...eventually leading up to Santa, where you got your picture taken with him.)

I don't remember ever having been terrified by Santa, though, but the Santas I remember were considerably more jovial than the one in the movie.

So much of that movie - we all love it in my family - have become family jokes, from "Fra-gee-ley, must be Italian" to the Bumpas dogs to "Chinese turkey." (The first time we ate at the fancy Chinese buffet in town, where they had duck - not whole entire duck but pieces, I think it was called "crispy duck" - someone made the comment of "The first time I had Chinese turkey..." and we all laughed)

I may also relate to the movie because a lot of the stuff in it is reminiscent of stories my parents tell about their childhood - the horrible tires that would go flat, the radio programs (though my mom says she was more partial to Gene Autry than to Little Orphan Annie), the classroom (my mom says her sixth grade classroom was just like that one).

And I also think there is sort of a universal childhood experience in wanting something SO MUCH, so much you are willing to scheme and pester to get it, and you don't think you will, and then (if you're lucky) waking up on Christmas morning and finding that you did, after all, get it. And one aspect of Christmas, really, is about getting far better than what we actually deserve, even if we did cry or pout, we still get that really extra-wonderful present. (And as an adult, you realize there is a more important Present you have received than a "Red Ryder bb gun with a compass in the stock and a thing that tells time")