"Though I would never have used this word to describe it back then, something about the movie seemed subversive. This was a Christmas movie about kids who used words like 'smart-ass' and accidentally dropped F-bombs in front of their parents, who lied to their teachers and harshly realized that Little Orphan Annie decoder pins decode nothing but crummy commercials for Ovaltine. Ralphie, Schwartz, and Flick were at an age I had recently reached, where the world still seems wondrous, but also increasingly disappointing and full of false pretense.
The older Ralphie who narrates A Christmas Story—voiced by Jean Shepherd, the writer whose In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash inspired the movie—never explains why he focuses his remembrances on this particular Christmas. We can assume it’s due to the passionate nature of his quest for a Red Ryder BB gun, and the happiness that resulted from fulfilling it. But I think Ralphie recalls it with special fondness for another reason: It was the last year he truly believed in Santa Claus."
Scratch that, I misread "the older Ralphie" as "the OLDEST Ralphie", which messed up the first line of my translation.