“Shiny!”
For Moon, a tiny owl just getting his wings under him, shiny is the best. If he sees something glitter on the ground or gleam in the trees, Moon will grab it, yessiree. He’ll bring it home and show his boring ol’ dad.
So what if Moon kinda, well, wrecked the nest after his latest treasure hunt? He brought home something shiny, at least! And now that the family nest is destroyed, they can all rebuild it! In silver!
“When you’re grown, you can make your silver nest in any tree you like,” Moon’s exasperated father says. “But it’s getting cold, and we have no nest at all.” Dad’ll need to go out into the forest and try to remedy that—and bring home something for dinner, too. So he gives Moon a very important job: Watching his baby sister while Dad’s away.
“Stay very still and very quiet,” Dad says. “And don’t go anywhere!”
But being still and quiet and don’t go anywhere isn’t Moon’s thing. The nest is broken, and Moon figures he’s just the owl to fix it. I mean, all he needs to do is gather a few sticks, right? And whaddya know, they live in a forest! There are sticks everywhere! So Moon promises his sister that he’ll stay close to the tree and be right back.
And then he sees something shiny.
The next thing you know, Moon’s attacked by a hawk. Dad swoops into the rescue, but Moon tumbles down and breaks his wing. With danger still hovering, Dad still has some work to do—but Moon sure can’t make it home by himself. Not with a broken wing.
“You’re going to be fine,” he tells Moon. “Just stay in the tree. Stay. In. The. Tree!”
This time, Moon listens. He stays in the tree all night. He stays in the tree even as someone chops it down. He stays in the tree as it’s carried down the freeway. And he’s in the tree when it’s placed smack-dab in the middle of Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center, festooned with lights and glass balls and scads of decorations.
Shiny.
But as much as Moon likes shiny, he likes something else even more.
Home.
Moon’s adventures are just beginning when he arrives in New York City. Yeah, he’d like to get home. But he’s a resilient little owl, and he takes the change of scenery in stride. Soon, he makes the acquaintance of an equally lonely little girl named Luna. The two of them tromp through the city’s snow-covered streets, both looking for a way home. For a while, each is the only friend the other has. And Luna does her best to help Moon get back to the forest.
Other characters, both man and beast, show kindness, too. Without giving much away, some tough-talking pigeons offer Moon unexpected help. A kindly fireman steps in, as well. And we can’t forget Moon’s father, who proves to be wiser than Moon imagined—and pretty brave, too.
An Almost Christmas Story is devoted to exploring what Christmas—and the Christmas spirit—is all about. And superficially, it does so in an almost entirely secular way. But all the same, the story perhaps offers more spiritual resonance than you might expect.
In my opinion, the most powerful nod comes as Luna and Moon walk through New York’s cold, snowy streets: Moon has dealt with bullying pigeons and selfish dogs. Luna is unsure of whether she even wants to go home. Her mom’s going to be so angry with her, after all. And even though Moon is a very chatty little owl, Luna can’t understand a word he says.
But then, the two of them see the story’s narrator, a vagabond folk singer, playing his guitar in front of a church. A string snaps, and he mutters, “It’s broken.” But then the singer says that broken things never stopped him from singing before—and he begins to croon the song “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
The song is a familiar, but not common, ditty. And here our narrator concentrates on the first very grim verse—one that emphasizes the winter’s physical and spiritual chill, where the earth was “hard as iron,” and water was “like a stone.” But as the narrator sings, the scene shifts. And shadowy, angelic-like creatures dotted with lights—perhaps an echo of the many eyes that, according to the Bible, some forms of angels are said to have—hover around him. And while we don’t hear the lyrics to the rest of “In the Bleak Midwinter,” those who know the song may fill in the gaps. That’s because the rest of the song unapologetically, gloriously points to Bethlehem: “In the bleak midwinter/A stable-place sufficed/The Lord God Almighty/Jesus Christ.”
I don’t think any of this is a mistake—especially given the fact that director David Lowery (whom I had the pleasure of interviewing several years ago) was raised in a deeply Christian environment. The church—so big and strong—stands in the background as a tiny, broken man plays a small, broken guitar. The scene speaks not only to both our own frailty and our world’s fallenness, but also to the unspoken hope that looms behind it.
It’s telling that this moment proves to be the turning point in the story. In a small Christmas miracle, Luna realizes that she can suddenly understand Moon. And characters that had been antagonistic suddenly find a wellspring of kindness and Christmas charity. Those lost, broken characters begin to find their way. They begin to heal.
The narrator later sings a song with more directly spiritual lyrics: “Making space in a manger/Making time, taking part/That’s the spirit of Christmas.” Another song lyric tells us that Christmas is about “good will towards all, and peace on Earth.”
Luna’s parents are apparently divorced, and she tries to decide which one to go “home” to.
As described above, Moon suffers a violent encounter with a hawk. When he loses altitude and tumbles down the branches of a tree, Moon suffers a broken wing, too. We see his dad swoop in and attack the hawk, though very little of their aerial melee is shown.
Once in New York, Moon is threatened by pigeons (who think he wants to fight them), falls down a flight of stairs and crashes through windows. Someone falls down while ice skating.
Luna lost her lower legs at some point: Both are now crude prosthetics. And when she takes one of those off, she complains about how much the remnants of her real leg hurts. (Moon is very impressed when she removes a leg, though. “That might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.)
Not much, other than one use of the word “crap.” We do hear some fairly innocent exclamations, though, including, “For Pete’s sake!” and “Holy mackerel!”
None.
In a subway station, a dog tells Moon that “This is not your place. This is my place. I’ve peed all over it.”
Moon obviously ignores his dad’s directive at the outset of the film. Luna, too, seems as though she’s snuck out of her house without her mom’s knowledge or permission—simply because she really wanted to skate. There’s a hint that she was happier when she had her legs—and skating and Christmas and her parents being together are all wrapped up in those earlier days. Her desire to skate seems like a desire to reclaim that past happiness once again.
“What makes a Christmas story?” the narrator asks us. “Is it the tree? The snow? The light in the darkness?”
That last bit, of course and, is what Christmas is about. In the darkest time of the year, we’re reminded of, and we celebrate, a light that came into the world—a gift that we were given. Unto us.
An Almost Christmas Story is, artistically, beautiful. We’re given a world that seems made of cardboard, where the most fleshed-out characters seem carved from wood. And outside a few moments of peril (and a poor example of behavior by its protagonist owl), the show has very little problematic content that parents need worry over. Sure, it’d be nice if An Almost Christmas Story pointed more explicitly to the real Christmas story, but we can’t have everything, right?
But hold on. Let’s pull that last piece of narrative string a little and see where it goes.
The name seems strange, doesn’t it? An Almost Christmas Story.
But I wonder if there’s a deeper meaning to that title—a meaning that perhaps was intended by Director David Lowery, or perhaps something that I’m fleshing out myself. Either way, let me offer a few thoughts.
An Almost Christmas Story gives us a couple of characters who are literally broken, literally lost. The fact that they find each other is great—even beautiful, perhaps. But it doesn’t fix everything. Luna still misses her legs and her family. Moon still needs to get home somehow. We see how Christmas seems to make things better, but it doesn’t make things better. It helps, but it doesn’t completely heal.
And perhaps we’re reminded of our own disappointments and despairs despite the Christmas season. Disappointments and despairs that can, ironically, feel especially keen at Christmas. We—like Moon, like Luna, like the narrator—are broken. The world is broken. Christmas reminds us (the movie says) of light in the darkness. But the darkness is still there, too.
Yet, think about the names of our two characters: Moon and Luna. Their names actually point to the most familiar light in the darkness we have.
And how do does the moon get its light? From the sun.
In the Spiritual Elements section above, I write about a folk singer who sings imperfectly in front of a massive, glorious church. And I suggest that the scene may be metaphorical. Perhaps it suggests how our own broken, imperfect frailty may be salved and redeemed by something so much greater than us, and how perhaps we can be used in our frailty by that holy greatness.
Perhaps the film—intentionally or no—further uses our two main characters to remind us of where light and warmth and life come from. At our best, we merely reflect the love and beauty and glory of something much greater.
An Almost Christmas Story? Perhaps we could argue that most of our Christmas stories are “almost” creations, just reflections of what Christmas really is. Because how can we truly, fully grasp that gift?
We are—even the wisest of us—in many ways like Moon, distracted by the shiny. We see things in our own world glitter and gleam, like tinsel, and we imagine that shiny thing is the source of life. We forget to look above and beyond—beyond the lights, beyond the glass balls, beyond the trappings of Christmas to what gives it all glow, what gives it all meaning.
Sometimes, An Almost Christmas Story tells us, we get even closer to the truth. “What’s Christmas?” Moon says to his father. “I don’t actually know. But I think—this is what it is.” And he gives his dad a great, big hug.
That’s pretty sweet, just like this story. It reminds us that Christmas is more than shiny baubles. It’s about love and hope and family and kindness.
But as beautiful as those elements are, they too are reflections of a greater love, hope and mercy. One that, when the dark night turns into day and the sun itself rises, we will all see, understand, and marvel.
Unto us.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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