the meek kid gets revenge on the bully. A lot of us really, really cheered that scene as Scot Farkus is reduced to blubbering tears. And the bonding with Mom later on ("Oh Ralphie got into a little fight, you know how boys are….hey did the Cubs just make a trade?") is heart wrenchingly priceless.

I was scared to death of Santa and hated going through that ritual every year. That scene rings very true for me.

Perfect setting and mood, great art direction, especially if the film is set in 1940. Remember the time of innocence? Both Ralphie and his brother will be too young to see action in W W 2.

One negative for me:

Melinda Dillon and especially Darren McGavin are waaaaaaaaaaayyyy to old to be parents in this time, McGavin well into his fifties. In a day when most kids married within four years of high school graduation they seem a bit anachronistic.

I was hoping that someone had mentioned the circumstances of Bob Clark's (and his son's) sad deaths. I have brought this fact up on several occasions in the immigration debate. I love this film, but I can no longer watch it without some degree of sadness, knowing what was to come. I love the film, so I watch it anyway.

What a criminal WASTE!

Some memories: I remember my father telling the story of daring one of his brothers to stick his tongue to the frozen rod of a windmill. I remember the claustrophobic feeling of being dressed in so many layers, for warmth, that I could hardly move. I did receive a BB gun from Santa. Fuses did blow with regularity. I knew kids who got the soap treatment.

Having grown up 25 miles from the nearest town, with no form of outside communication, I understood Ralphie's vivid imagination. When it snowed, I "hitched" my white Spitz to a cardboard box and pretended I was "mushing" in the Yukon. When it rained so hard it made raging ravines in the “bar ditches” beside the dirt road, I was crossing a raging river. And, on top of that, my Uncle’s ranch adjoined the ranch of “Red Ryder” himself, and I got to sit atop his mighty steed.

Today, I can’t water my lawn without calling the creeping grass stolons heading toward the flower beds, “Marauding invaders.”