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It’s the final entry of our Advent Calendar…but what will it be?

The Homecoming: A Christmas Story

Over the past several years, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story has become my favourite Christmas film. It’s something I watch every Christmas Day without fail.

It’s probably better known for being the progenitor of the long-running 1970s TV series The Waltons which is a shame as, beyond the same cast of children, Richard Thomas and Ellen Corby, the TV series is a faint echo of this 1971 film. The Homecoming was shot on location (Wyoming standing in for the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia) with a gritty naturalism—the characters all had Appalachian accents—and it cast heavyweight actress Patricia Neal as the Matriarch-with-a-capital-M. The TV series was shot in California, recast the adult leads with younger, friendlier actors, and ditched the regional accents and naturalism to fit a typical four-act drama sponsored by Sanka and General Foods products.

It’s a shame because, taken on its own, The Homecoming is a beautiful film, content with gently showing us life in a big family on Christmas Eve in the middle of the great depression. Ma Walton (Neal) along with Grandpa and Grandma (Edgar Bergen and Ellen Corby) are trying to get things ready for Christmas. The eldest son John Boy (Richard Thomas) is trying to keep his younger siblings doing the chores while coming to terms with the fact that he has dreams and aspirations that are bigger than Walton’s Mountain. Their father, John Walton, has been working at a logging camp and is supposed to be home (with the Christmas presents no less) but hasn’t shown up. Eventually, John Boy is sent on a quest to find his father—one that takes him to the local black congregation and to the home of the elderly spinster sisters who act as the local bootleggers.

It’s a film about the little joys, yearnings, tragedies and moments precious and absurd that make a life wonderful. It’s about discovering the Christmas cactus that bloomed in the basement. It’s watching the eldest daughter, Mary Ellen as she goes through the mania of entering puberty. It’s witnessing John Boy fess up to his mother that he’s not, in fact, doing anything behind a closed door more unwholesome than writing down his thoughts and struggling with his place in the world. It’s the wry observance of the neighbour who delivers stolen turkeys like some modern-day Robin Hood. It’s seeing the mother wistfully recount the events that led to her marriage. It’s experiencing the disappointment of sitting through a missionary’s sermon to the ‘poor children’ to only be given a doll with a broken face as a present.

Like some of the other films we’ve talked about this month, The Homecoming is also a memoir of writer Earl Hamner Jr.’s life growing up in the depression. But while Mon Oncle Antoine looks back with pathos and A Christmas Story harkens back with irony, The Homecoming is nostalgic. Not in a bad way—it just remembers a time when people had little (the scene where shopkeeper Ike Godsey tries to tempt the mother with buying a doll on credit is astounding) and yet had more. And as we see from the grandfather’s shock as the butter is churned while listening to the radio, the times don’t change all that much.

It’s a film about the pains and delights of a family on Christmas Eve. There’s nothing more beautiful in the world than that. And here we have it in its entirety. Enjoy.

See Part 1: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 2: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 3: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 4: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 5: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 6: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 7: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 8: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 9: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

See Part 10: http://community.hallmarkchannel.com/kickapps/_The-Waltons-The-Homecomin...

This is the last entry in the WonderCafe Advent Calendar. I’d like to thank Aaron McCarroll Gallegos for letting me do this and, moreover, putting up all these entries while on his Christmas vacation, my wife for putting up with me as I wrote all of them, and all of you for reading them and commenting on them!

Merry Christmas everyone!