A Christmas Story - Life Truths for Family Life

I LOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEE Christmas movies and in the top three of all time is Ralphie and his family.
Wonderfully, as a parent, so much more has opened up to me about this movie. All the wonderful interactions of Ralphie's mom and dad are so typical of couples that are married for a while. Their comfort level with each other is rightly portrayed as a tension of two individuals in love but incredible aware of each other's failings. Luckily, like most successful marriages, this tension is only broken occasionally by a little comment and even less often a fight.
The beauty of this is the kids being blissfully UNaware of this tension and just being, well, kids. The scene where Ralphie and Randy get socks for Christmas and whip them over their shoulders is SOOOO perfectly normal.
Ya gotta love A Christmas Story. Magically portraying the human condition in America and sealed for time in a movie.