Face it: You can only sit through so many versions of A Christmas Carol. You never really cared for Miracle on 34th Street in the first place. And it's tough to shake the horrible memories of a colorized It's a Wonderful Life. Thankfully, we still have Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story, the latest de rigeur holiday film. It's a wonderful modern fable: Sometimes you get what you really want, and sometimes, weird as they may be, your family isn't all that bad.

Susan Gale