Day Seventeen

A Christmas Story

When Kat and I got married I was surprised to discover that she had never seen the movie “A Christmas Story.” I kept asking “How had she managed to get through high school in the 80’s and not see it?” She just gave me that look that suggested the education I received in New Mexico was somehow inferior to her California education.

Every year I kept trying to get her to watch it with me. I tried to tell the story of Ralphie and his family, and his unquenchable desire for a Red Rider BB gun. I am pretty sure she thought it was some sort of children’s version of Dirty Harry with a Santa Claus thrown in, so she kept turning me down.

In 1995 I was working at the reservation center for HFS and one of the perks was that I could stay in franchise motels or hotels for about $15 a night, as long as they were more than 50 miles from the reservation center. That year we were having Christmas in Okmulgee with Stephanie and Clyde and Elisa Gail and Kat & Steph’s parents. Rather than sleep on the air mattress on the floor in Stephanie’s study office, we got a room at the local Day’s Inn.

Hardly a resort destination, all the Day’s Inn Okmulgee had to offer was that it was clean, the rooms were warm, they allowed small pets (which was good since we had Angel with us), and they had free cable. Christmas Eve we went to church with Steph and the family, then went back to Stephanie’s house where we opened presents (presents on Christmas Eve is a strictly Dunaway tradition I am still trying to break Kathleen of). Then we went back to the hotel. If I remember correctly we said we had presents to wrap, but who were we kidding, we were young, and we had no kids, and we were organized, our presents had been wrapped for weeks. Stephanie had given us a bottle of champagne and we went back to hotel with that.

As it turned out the cable channel TNT was showing “A Christmas Story” around the clock. Kat and I sat on the bed with the dog, drank champagne from plastic hotel cups and watched the movie. Kat laughed so hard she was crying.

We do not watch it every year, but we do watch it more years than not. Now that we are parents it is part of the fun to watch it with the boys. I love it when they quote lines from the movie. Paul is partial to the line “fra-gee-lay, must be Italian!” Matthew has been known to say “OHHHH FFFFFFFF-uuuuudddddggge!” But the very best of all is Paul’s imitation of Ralphie telling Santa “I want a red rider bb gun with a compass in the stock” and then smiling that same smile from the kid in the movie. It is spot on and high-larious.