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In the nearly 40 years since A Christmas Story was released to modest business and decent reviews, Bob Clark’s 1983 adaptation of Jean Shepherd’s 1966 In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash has become a bona fide classic with massive media sales and round-the-clock television airings throughout December every year. A sequel has been teased for decades, but now an actual teaser has dropped for a proper follow-up entitled A Christmas Story Christmas, directed by Clay Kaytis, set to drop on HBO Max on November 17, 2022.
Peter Billingsley reprises his role as the original’s Ralphie Parker, a now 50-something family man who returns home to his childhood house on Cleveland Street in fictional Hohman, Indiana, after his father (originally played by Darren McGavin, who passed in 2006) passes hoping to give his kids a magical Christmas like the one he had as a child while reconnecting with childhood friends. Billingsley is joined by returning cast members Ian Petrella as his younger brother, Randy; Zack Ward as his bully Scut Farkus, and, most exciting, R.D. Robb as double, actually triple dog-darer Scott Schwartz, while Julie Hagerty fills the shoes of the retired Melinda Dillon as Ralphie’s mother, Mrs. Parker.
Ralphie Returns to His Childhood Home in Hohman
“Oh, life moves fast. One day you’re playing kick the can with kids named Flick and Schwartz…the next thing you know, you’re a certified adult,” we hear Billingsley’s Ralphie over idyllic shots of the old neighborhood and clips from the original, including the tongue getting stuck to the frozen pole scene. We see the adult Ralphie reunite with his friends and raise a glass at a bar to his deceased dad.
“Ralph … to your old man,” R.D. Robb’s Schwartz toasts at the local tavern run by Schwartz’s Flick, who chimes in, “He was the best.” We then are introduced to Hagerty’s incarnation of the Parker patriarch, who softly intones, “Ralphie, promise me we’re gonna make this a wonderful Christmas – that would make your father so happy. “I promise,” Ralphie warmly states in a moment that could come from a Hallmark movie.
But the sentimentality is short-lived, as what we’ve come to see in a sequel to A Christmas Story is a stressed-out farce about trying to make the season the best ever, and this teaser wants us to know that it’s attempting to live up to tradition. After making the promise to his mother, we hear Ralphie’s inner voice saying, “What had I done? And now it was all up to me?” Cut to Schwartz, back at the bar pouring a shot: “I suggest you start drinking and don’t stop ‘til New Year’s!”
Now it’s time for a call-back to one of the original’s most famous scenes: Ralphie’s meeting with Santa Claus at Higbee’s department store. Higbee’s, now looking more posh and modern, but still somehow the same to match the décor from the first time around. “Who wants to go see Santa?” Ralphie excitedly asks his kids, played by River Drosche and Julianna Layne. “We’ll meet you right here when you’re done,” Ralphie’s wife Sandy (Erinn Hayes) tells them with her husband, adding, “Don’t let ‘em kick you in the face!” to his mother’s confused look and response, “huh?”
A Christmas tree decorating scene follows, with Ralphie and Sandy directing their kids’ ornament-hanging from the couch. This is our chance to get a sense of the precocious kids’ points of view. “When it’s just us decorating – it kind of feels like child labor!” Sandy replies, “Honey, it’s not labor if we don’t pay you.”
Ralphie Finds That the Season Isn’t Greeting Him Kindly
Over shots of Ralphie struggling with the Christmas tree, we hear him say to Sandy, “My dad made this all look so easy,” to her wise reply, “That doesn’t mean it was easy.” This leads to more moments of physical shenanigans, including a snowmobile plowing down a snowman and a finale with bully Farkus riding a sled down a steep metal slide because he was, you guessed it, triple-dog dared by Schwartz.
“That’s brutal,” concludes Ralphie’s daughter Julie, and we get a few more shots of Christmas craziness with Ralph scrambling to leave Higbee’s with bags of presents, some pratfalls, and some family table bonding before the one minute and 50-second teaser ends with white letters on the red title card, and an invite to “Join the fun” on November 17.
A Christmas Story Christmas isn’t the first sequel to the 1983 classic. The original A Christmas Story was followed by Clark’s My Summer Story (originally released in theaters as It Runs in the Family) and the direct-to-video sequel, A Christmas Story 2 (2012). But this new chapter is the closest, most direct continuation of the legend of Ralphie Parker, so the stakes are higher with fans as to whether it will live up to the majorly beloved holiday comedy staple.
The teaser for the upcoming sequel looks promising with its timing, tone, and the feeling of loving tribute it conveys. Whatever its reception, it will come to be seen if it’ll have the legendary legs its lofty predecessor has proven over the last four decades.
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