11. Growing Up With Kevin: My Chaotic & Comforting Christmas Companion
A love letter from Srishti Sharma to "Home Alone" (1990)
Home Alone, mon amour,
First and foremost, I hope you forgive me for seeking solace in you during my early adolescence. There’s really no excuse; the springtime of life brings many perplexities. Pretense is one of them. Rest assured though, this 22-year-old has no problem publicly quoting you and manifesting a snowy month with a heavily ornamented Christmas tree and a rendezvous with two comical thieves trying to steal Christmas. What can I say? I’m all about realistic manifestations.
Let me try to give you an (oddly specific) equivalence of what you mean to me. Imagine an experience. We’ve all had it – letting our guard down, being completely overwhelmed by frustration, and having a spectacle of a venting session with a close friend. Yeah, not that. This would’ve been a pretty condescending letter if that were the case. You are the aftermath that follows the venting. The calming quiet that fills the air as you both bide your time, until one of you lets out a burst of laughter, thinking back on how ridiculously petty and intense that moment was. And yet, here you are, feeling warm, giddy, and able to just breathe. That feeling is you, mon amour.
Being an only child raised in a metropolitan city in India, where Christmas and New Year’s have largely become about consumerism, I’ve always valued having people I care about around me for an intimate and meaningful holiday season. When family would come to stay, we’d get plum cake, play board games, have sleepovers, and watch your story unfold together, all bundled up in heavy blankets. That was until I moved to the States at 15 to pursue theatre. Since then, I’ve spent quite a few Christmases alone. The despondency of spending what should be a jovial, festive time in isolation is disheartening, but if there’s been one constant during this pivot, it’s been you. Watching your protagonist, Kevin (a hero, and how), struggle to get attention in a house full of chaos somehow brought me comfort. Not the child neglect part, of course, but the hustle and bustle of a home where people come together—not out of obligation, but out of an unspoken custom and a genuine desire to be around family, even when things aren’t perfect. That is something I experienced through you. You kept me company.
Confident and charming as he is, Kevin is also a sensitive child, with a worldview caught somewhere between whimsy and reality. You don’t deceive us by portraying him as an ideal child, and yet he is incredibly endearing. He makes mistakes, but shows true remorse. His wit is exceptional, as is his poignancy. His ways are humorous, yet his wisdom is admirable. Perhaps that is what resonated with me: the inner child that longed to be seen.
Every element involved in making you the beloved classic we all cherish today takes me back to when I first saw you at the age of five. Nostalgia can be utterly capricious. It can comfort you, and it can send you into deep dejection. That’s why it’s beautiful. The magic of the visuals shot on film, the wonderful score by John Williams that envelopes me, the storyline that transforms rather than simply narrates—it all feels like a warm embrace. Your characters are flawed, real people with remorse, brought into a world of spontaneous escapades. Nestled into my spirit, the denouement of a mother and son reuniting is like a lullaby silencing the quiet echoes of loneliness, albeit temporarily. And I’m still grateful.
Perhaps your greatest gift is your ability to be a gentle, lighthearted reminder to me. You remind me to laugh, to feel, to forgive…to believe. You are like a gentle hand that aids in healing the scratched places I forgot needed healing.
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.
All the love,
Srishti
About Srishti
Srishti Sharma is an actor, writer, and director. She has trained as an actor in both India and the United States at various institutes such as Idyllwild Arts, Yale Actors Conservatory, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Lee Strasberg Institute of Film and Theatre, and Juilliard.
Srishti has been a part of several theatrical productions in California and New York. These productions include Shakespeare’s The Two Noble Kinsmen and Macbeth, original play TQB at The Juilliard School, Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and Strindberg’s Miss Julie.
Her most recent project was directing The Sound of Music at a high school in India. Currently, Srishti is in pre-production for her film When Night Comes and another untitled feature film project.
When she’s not working on her craft, she can usually be found stumbling through art galleries, geeking out about Spiderman or making (only slightly pretentious) art.
