A Christmas Story has long been a celebrated holiday film. Indeed, the movie has become a staple of many American families' own Christmas traditions, and is one of the most quoted holiday films of all time. In the contemporary age of revivals and spin-offs, A Christmas Story has recently received its own sequel: A Christmas Story Christmas, which premiered in November 2022 as a collaboration between Warner Bros. Pictures and HBO Max.
A Christmas Story Christmas is set in the 70s (thirty years after the events of A Christmas Story). It once again follows Ralphie Parker, now a grown man with a wife and two children, as he prepares for Christmas with his family. At the beginning of the film, however, Ralphie (who lives in Chicago) receives a call from his mother saying that his father has passed away. He and his family must travel back to Hohman, Indiana for his father's funeral and to celebrate Christmas with his mother. While there, Ralphie's mother tasks him with writing his father's obituary and making Christmas special for everybody, like his father did.
The film is a comedy that relies on many of the same themes and motifs as the original. One of its central themes, however, is the comparison drawn between Ralphie (now a father of two children) and his own father, affectionately referred to as The Old Man. Whereas the original film shows Ralphie's father just beginning to perceive his son as a young man, A Christmas Story Christmas follows Ralphie as he reckons with the loss of his father and therefore his own role in the lives of his two children.
