Copyright 2008, Susan DeLay
Brian Jones had his life all planned out. He wanted to be a Naval aviator, just like his dad. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis with a degree in aerospace engineering and headed off to flight school. That’s where his best-laid plans fell apart. Because his vision was not up to speed, his dream of being a pilot crashed and burned. But Brian’s vision became bigger than his eyesight.
While trying to figure out what the next chapter of his life would look like, he received a package—a rather large one nailed in a crate marked FRAGILE. Brian pried it open to find a gift from his parents, one they hoped would cheer him up. It was a leg lamp. And not just any leg lamp, but a replica of the gaudy, one-legged, fishnet hose-wearing lamp made famous in the 1983 film A Christmas Story.
Pure Class in the Living Room
My brother has one of those lamps. It looks nice in the living room next to the cat. Pure class. The lamp is a tribute to his family’s passion for the movie based on writer Jean Shepherd’s childhood. Every Thanksgiving, immediately after the pie has been polished off, David and his family gather in their living room, turn on television and watch A Christmas Story and let her run. To say it airs 24/7 would be an exaggeration, but not by much. They, along with millions of others, have come to see the film as a symbol of Christmas. 20Forget Santa. Forget the Creche. On Thanksgiving, Christmas is all about Ralphie and what he wants for Christmas—an official “Red Ryder, carbine-action, two-hundred shot model air rifle with a compass and a thing that tells time.” (That’s from the script.)
A Christmas Story Turns 25
The movie celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. The story is set in Hammond, Indiana in 1940. Movies being what they are, they are rarely filmed in the actual spot where the action takes place. If they were, then Star Wars would have been filmed in a galaxy far, far away and the Wizard of Oz would have been shot in the Emerald City.
A Christmas Story was filmed in Cleveland and the house where nine-year-old Ralphie Parker went to great lengths to make sure he got his Red Ryder weapon, is located on=2 0the west side of Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.
A House in Cleveland
Jones left the Navy and opened a little business called RedRiderLegLamps.com where people could go to his Web site and purchase the fishnet-covered leg lamps. A year after he opened his company, his wife, who was also in the military, learned from her Captain that the house in Cleveland had been listed on eBay. Brian, by now an entrepreneur of all things Christmas Story, jumped on it. He contacted the seller, offered him $150,000, and a mere 24 hours later, the house was his.
And thanks to Brian Jones’ bad eyesight, serious Christmas Story fans can make a pilgrimage to Cleveland to see the site of the Parker Home, which is now a museum.
For a modest fee—less than the price of full-price admission to a feature film—visitors can tour the house that has been fixed up and remodeled so it’s identical to the soundstages used in the movie.
The museum, located across the street from the house, has props, costumes, photos from the film, and memorabilia. Oh, and a gift shop. (A museum without a gift shop is pretty much un-American.) Chances are you could pick up a leg lamp while you’re shopping. If you’re really an aficionado, you can purchase a piece of the original siding of the house that’s been autographed by Brian himself and comes with a certificate of authenticity. At $20 per piece, he’ll have that mortgage paid off in no time. Considering one-sixth of the country’s population tunes in each season to watch the movie, there are some definite fans out there.
Living the Dream
Brian Jones didn’t become a one-in-a-hundred-thousand pilot in the Navy; instead he’s living his new and improved dream. He’s the one-and-only proprietor of the Christmas Story House and Museum. He loved the movie when he was still living at home with his parents, and chances are, the whole family gathered on Thanksgiving to watch it on television—just like my brother’s family.
These days, Brian hangs out in Cleveland soaking up A Christmas Story year round. The house and museum are open every day except Easter, Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day. Ironically, they’re closed on Christmas.
