Ralph Parker (Peter Billingsly) relived a painful moment from his childhood - not once, but twice - in HBO Max's A Christmas Story Christmas, the long-awaited follow-up to 1983's A Christmas Story, when weather-related injuries were inflicted upon both of his children during his family's time in Hohman, Indiana. A Christmas Story Christmas brings Ralph and his family, wife Sandy, son Mark, and daughter Julie, back to Ralphie's hometown after the unexpected ing of his father. In Hohman, Ralph is reacquainted with many familiar faces like buddies Flick and Shwartz, and a new generation of bullies steps up to challenge his children.
During A Christmas Story Christmas, painful incidents occur to all the cast, including Ralph's fiction manuscript being rejected by multiple publishers, his wife injuring her ankle on her way to an ice skating outing, and their Christmas presents being stolen from their car's trunk. But two incidents harken viewers back to the original film's cry of, "You'll shoot your eye out!" In the movie, during a friendly family snowball fight, Ralph accidentally hits his daughter Julie, from close range, requiring a trip to the hospital. After receiving treatment and ready to leave with both a patch and gauze on her eye, she groans, "I'm a cyclops!"
How Julie's Injury In A Christmas Story Christmas Connects To Ralphie's BB Gun
The only gift Ralphie wanted in A Christmas Story was a Red Ryder air rifle, a BB gun nearly no one in his life condoned. Despite that, Ralphie still found himself with the gun. While shooting at a target in his yard, a BB fires back at him, knocking off his glasses and injuring his face. But his injury is not serious. In the sequel, Ralph aims a snowball at his son Mark, but turns instead to find his daughter Julie, who was too close to him to be hit with anything thrown so hard. After a hospital visit, it was also determined that her injury was not serious.
How Mark's Big Gift In A Christmas Story Christmas Mirrors Ralphie's Arc
Additionally, Ralph's son Mark spent the Christmas season asking for a Flexible Flyer F23 Yankee Clipper wooden sled, the old-fashioned kind known for its injury potential. When Flick challenged Schwartz to a ride on the "frosted sluice of terror" called The Ramp, which Ralph believed was Flick's long-awaited revenge for the frozen pole incident, and he succeeded, a sledding party with the bar patrons and Mark ensued. Mark, using a similar sled, careened down a hill and into a stationary object, breaking his arm. Mark eventually opened his own Flexible Flyer on Christmas morning, making him the second generation of Parkers to receive a present fraught with peril.
A Christmas Story Christmas closely mirrors A Christmas Story. The film highlighted how Ralph, his friends, and family have evolved into adulthood while ing classic A Christmas Story elements down to a new generation of Parkers. A Christmas Story Christmas would not have been complete without a reference to, "You'll shoot your eye out!" And though the themes of this movie were more tender than its predecessor, the mishaps featured in the follow-up continued the playful and mischievous tone set by the original. Though there was a lot of concern about eyes being shot out, or otherwise injured, all of the characters in both movies emerged safely from their tribulations.
