Member-only story
“You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!”
It’s that “A Christmas Story” Time of Year
You’ll shoot your eye out!” may be December’s best-known refrain. You can overhear it in millions of households as Christmas nears, and you can be tormented by it for 24 hours on the day itself, should you choose to tune in. Ralphie is the pudgy, blond, nine-year old who desires an “official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.” Contrary to his desire, every adult Ralphie esteems tells him, “You’ll shoot your eye out!”
You’ve seen the film at least once, if not a half-dozen times. Adult Ralphie narrates the episodes leading to his best Christmas ever. Flick gets his tongue stuck to the flag pole at recess; Ralphie has his hero sequences, and we mourn again the inglorious fate of the family’s turkey dinner at the dripping jaws of the Bumpus Family’s uncouth hounds.
I’ve seen it too, and too, and too. I’m a genuine member of the “A Christmas Story” cul… I mean, “niche audience.” How genuine a member, you ask? Really. Please ask. I can’t wait to tell you. “A Christmas Story,” released in November 1983, and not widely noticed at the time, has since become a December classic, and has been deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress. It is all of those to me.
