A Christmas Story is the Fundraising Movie You Deserve This Holiday Season
A few posts ago we had some fun with fundraising moments in movies that have nothing to do with fundraising. We concluded that raising money is sort of like the supporting cast of a movie—they help make happy endings possible.
No one mentioned A Christmas Story. Scandalous!
Now that it’s the height of Christmas movie season, it’s time to discuss the (albeit tenuous) fundraising subtext to this movie. And the short story it’s based on.
I’m about to spoil a 40-year-old movie if you haven’t already seen it 1,000 times.
Ralphie Parker is the Golden Boy of Christmas-movie children. He’s blessedly free of Charlie Brown’s trombone womp-womps; he’s not a sleepy babe in the woods like Cindy Lou Who; and he shows none of Kevin McAlister’s nail-through-the-foot penchant for Yuletide justice.
Unlike other Christmas-movie kids, Ralphie has the makings of dynamic fundraiser because he’s always making an he ask in the movie. He wants a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas, so he sneaks adverts into his parents’ magazines. Then he blows his chance at breakfast with his mother. Then he writes a C+ essay about the air rifle. When all else fails, he hits up a department store Santa Claus.
Everybody tells him no.
But he keeps asking. For an hour and thirty minutes.
Put simply: Ralphie is made of tougher stuff than most. He can take a Christmas punch and get back on his feet better than most of us. (Including myself. Santa never brought me the massive GI Joe aircraft carrier—the coup de grace of Christmas 1985. I’ve only recently began speaking to my mother again.)
I admire this kid. I like that he keeps asking.
And he never loses the spirit when he does it.
A Christmas Story is based on Jean Shepherd’s 1966 short story collection, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.
SIDENOTE
A few fun facts about Jean Shepherd:
Shel Silverstein wrote the song “A Boy Named Sue” (sung by Johnny Cash) about Jean Shepherd. Apparently, Shepherd was embarrassed by having a girl’s name.
The sexy leg lamp in the movie wasn’t the first time it appeared on screen. Check out this awful 1976 PBS TV version of the leg lamp scene.
The real-life inspiration for kid brother Randy actually grew up and played baseball for the Cincinnati Reds
In the story (unlike the movie), Ralphie is much more interested in what he’s giving others for Christmas than what he’s getting. At recess, kids aren’t double-dog-daring each other to lick frozen flagpoles. They’re discussing what they’re getting their parents for Christmas: “we talked in hushed, hoarse whispers to guard against Security leaks.” The fun of Christmas in the story, it seems, is gossiping with your friends in the schoolyard about what you’re giving your parents. I love this.
So, what does Ralphie get the Parker family for Christmas in the short story?
For his mother, Ralphie “narrowed the field down to two spectacular items [he] had been stealthily eyeing at Woolworth’s for several weeks”: a necklace and a perfume atomizer. Both expensive, both fancy. He chooses the atomizer.
For The Old Man, “a dedicated hood-shiner,” Ralphie gets a can of Simoniz car wax.
The trickiest part of choosing a gift for little brother, Randy, is heading off the fight that will occur if it’s something both of them want. He eventually buys him a toy zeppelin: “I figured this was something you could really get your teeth into.”
Ralphie’s internal deliberations around gift-giving don’t show up in the movie. And I get it: it’s more fun to watch a potato-faced kid kick and scrap his way to Christmas morning than watch him worry about the price difference between a necklace and an atomizer for his mom. But we miss out on a sophisticated part of his personality—the part where he gets a jolt from making things happen for others, not just himself. It makes me think that sometimes we get kids wrong at Christmastime, you know?
In fact, the most fascinating difference between the movie and the story is when Ralphie thinks he’s not getting the gun for Christmas.
In the movie, he mopes on the sofa until The Old Man calls his attention to one last unopened gift.
But in the story, Ralphie doesn’t really care when he doesn’t find the Red Rider under the tree. He instinctively turns to what he gave others to make himself feel better: “There was no denying that I had scored heavily with the Simoniz and the atomizer, as well as the zeppelin. The joy of giving can uplift the saddened heart.” Sure, he still gets the air rifle like in the movie, but it doesn’t make or break his Christmas.
Not like the GI Joe aircraft carrier Santa Kitty never had under the tree.
Between the movie and the short story, A Christmas Story gives us a kid who’s not afraid to make an ask and wants to give others nice things. In its best form, I think, this is what fundraising aspires to be.
When you watch the movie again this year, keep an eye out for the gifts Ralphie gives his family from the story. I’ve found two out of three of them (I’m still looking for the atomizer). You already know the Red Rider is behind the drapes, so try not to shoot your eye out letting this budding fundraiser give you the gift of something new to look out for during this year’s 24-hour TBS marathon viewing.
Happy holidays!
And you didn’t get the Star Wars Millennium Falcon, either. I’m an utter failure as a mother.
I have seen that movie 1,000 times and never thought about Ralphie asking for the bb gun as a fundraising ask - point well made - love it! Great holiday post!