HBO Max debuts 'A Christmas Story Christmas' trailer

In a trailer released Tuesday for "A Christmas Story Christmas," HBO Max's sequel to the classic "A Christmas Story" (1983), a grown-up Ralphie Parker reluctantly assumes the task of creating a memorable holiday for his children, in the wake of his own father's death.

With Peter Billingsley reprising his role as Ralphie, the put-upon 1940s kid from writer Jean Shepherd's semiautobiographical short stories, the new film finds Ralphie returning to his hometown of Cleveland and his mom (Julie Hagerty, succeeding the original's Melinda Dillon). It's now the 1970s, and the department store Higbee's still has its Santa and its long line of kids making wishes.

"Oh, life moves fast," Ralphie narrates in voice-over. "One day you're playing kick the can with kids named Flick and Schwartz. The next thing you know," he thinks, entering his now-grown pal Flick's Tavern, "you're a certified adult." Flick and Schwartz (Scott Schwartz and R.D. Robb, respectively, also reprising their roles) are glad to see him, and all three toast Ralph's father, affectionately known as The Old Man.

Next, Ralph's children, Mark and Julie (River Drosche and Julianna Layne), greet their grandmother, after which the matriarch tells her son, "Ralphie, promise me we're gonna make this a wonderful Christmas. That would make your father so happy." Ralph promises. She leaves and his face drops. "What have I done?" he thinks. "And now it was all up to me?"

Flick, pouring one out at the bar, suggests "you start drinkin' and don't stop till New Year's."

Ralph and his wife, Sandy (Erinn Hayes), take their children to see Santa, just as Ralphie had gone decades earlier to ask for "an official Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot Range Model air rifle." Later at home the tykes trim the tree. "When it's just us decorating," says Julie, "it kind of feels like child labor." "Honey," responds Sandy, "it's not labor if we don't pay you."

"My dad made this all look so easy," Ralph later laments to his wife. "That doesn't mean it was easy," she says. With that theme enunciated, we cut to ensuing slapstick — including Flick, striking a familiar refrain from the original, triple-dog-daring Schwartz to do something involving a sled and a ski jump.

Following the 1983 original, which starred the late Darren McGavin as The Old Man, came the poorly received 1994 sequel "My Summer Story" aka "It Runs in the Family," with Kieran Culkin as Ralphie and Charles Grodin and Mary Steenburgen as his parents. Another sequel, "A Christmas Story 2," starring Braeden Lemasters, Daniel Stern and Stacey Travis in those roles, went direct-to-video in 2012.

"A Christmas Story Christmas" begins streaming Nov. 17.