A Christmas Story Christmas (2022)

If watching “A Christmas Story” is a part of your annual holiday ritual, you might want to make time to catch the sequel. It’ll make for a warm double helping of Christmas nostalgia.

The result is something that, while never reaching the ineffable magic of Clark’s film, ends up in solidly entertaining, if slightly disjointed, holiday territory.

After fits and stops, this sequel finds its nostalgic sweet spot midway through and lands an ending that feels earned and honors the spirit of Shepherd and the characters of A Christmas Story.

While it spends perhaps too much of its running time either recreating or directly quoting moments from its 1983 predecessor, it still manages to land some new and original gags of its own.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard A Christmas Story Christmas tries to replicate what audiences loved about the original, it can't help but feel overshadowed by the legacy of nostalgia that the 1983 classic inspires.