Continuity mistake: When Melinda Dillon breaks the lamp, it is broken into many pieces, but when Darren McGavin is gluing it back together it is now in much fewer and bigger broken pieces. Obviously different broken lamps were used.
Continuity mistake: When Ralphie's father is sitting in the chair reading the funnies (before the dogs ruin the turkey), there is a small gold lampshade sitting on the table next to him. In the first shot, there is a Christmas bow on it. In the following shot, the bow has disappeared.
Continuity mistake: When Raphie's mother is working on the turkey on Christmas morning, there is a jar of pickles on the table next to the turkey. In the next scene the mother is coming up from the basement carrying a jar of pickles and places them on the table in the same place.
Continuity mistake: When the "old man" first puts the lamp on the edge of the box there is no light fixture on which to place the shade. He then returns the lamp to the box and when he brings it out, there is a place to put the shade. Also as he hands it to the mother and then takes it back to put it on the table, there is no electrical cord visible. However, just before he sets it down on the table you can see a cord in his left hand.
Continuity mistake: When the father comes in for hot water for the car, the furnace goes haywire and black smoke comes out of the register. The father goes to the basement to fix the furnace and yells upstairs for somebody to open the damper. The mother goes over and begins to move the bottom lever and then changes her mind and moves the top lever all the way to the left. In the next shot the top lever is all the way to the right while the bottom lever has miraculously moved all the way to the left.
Continuity mistake: When Ralphie's dad is going through the wooden box to see his prize there is a lot of excelsior in it to keep it protectively packaged. When he's bent down digging through it, he has a lot of it on his back. In the next shot when he is standing up, he's perfectly clean.
Continuity mistake: After Melinda Dillon breaks the leg lamp, she holds the broken leg in her arms in a pile of three separate pieces. After Darren McGavin asks "What broke?", the 'leg' magically heals itself into one single, straight, yet loosely-knit piece. (00:52:20)
Continuity mistake: In the kitchen scene, as Ralphie's father comes in for hot water to thaw the car, and then turns his attention to the furnace, there is a white funnel on the shelf beneath the clock. The camera follows him to the basement steps and the smoke coming from the register. In the next shot, showing the anxious family, Ralphie's mother moves forward and the funnel has moved to the sink behind Ralphie's head.
Continuity mistake: When Ralphie fights Scut Farcus, he starts out with snow on his hat and jacket, from the snowball Scut threw at him. Then in the next frame, there's no snow on him. It goes back and forth like that throughout the whole fight scene.
Continuity mistake: When the father is reading the paper on Christmas morning, the dogs run by him coming from the front door, but in the previous scene the only door open for the dogs to come in through was the backdoor. (01:25:25)
Continuity mistake: Early in the movie when Ralphie catches up with Flick on the way to school, Ralphie is holding a book or folder that has the top left corner folded over. In the next shot when Schwartz joins them, the fold is now on the bottom left side. Ralphie's arm covers the top corner of the book most of the time so look closely during the last few seconds of the scene.
Continuity mistake: In the playground scene when Flick first sticks his tongue to the flagpole, the street in the background has been snowplowed. The kids all go back in to the classroom without Flick. When the teacher asks "Where's Flick?", and looks out the window and sees him at the pole, the same street in the back ground has not been plowed.
Continuity mistake: During dinner Randy has been eating like a "piggie" and his face is covered with food, when the doorbell rings. As he gets up to answer the door he looks to left and his face is clean but then as they go to the door there are mashed potatoes on his face again.
Continuity mistake: When the teacher is trying to make the kids feel bad for Flick, look at the blackboard. The garland is covering something written that is underlined: all that is seen is a G to the right. As she tells them of the theme, the garland is no longer covering the writing.
Continuity mistake: When Santa pushes Ralphie down the slide with his foot, Santa is actually seated too far away from the slide for his foot to have reached Ralphie's face. In all the wide shots of the scene (especially the very last one as the family leaves the store), you can see that Santa's chair is placed too far away from the entrance of the slide for his foot to have reached the sizable distance to Ralphie's face. But in the tighter P.O.V. shots where Santa is talking to Ralphie just before he gives him the boot, you can see that Santa's chair has been moved over and placed directly in front of the slide so that he can easily reach Ralphie's face. Even better, just as the Elf places Ralphie in Santa's lap, there is a 360 degree panoramic shot that shows just how far away the slide is from Santa's foot.
Continuity mistake: When Ralphie beats up the neighborhood bully there is snow all over the ground, but only in the immediate yard. Right over the fence the ground is clean. In a later shot when Mom is pulling Ralphie off the bully there is snow in all the yards.
Continuity mistake: Looking out the classroom window, in the scene where the teacher has gone out to help free Flick's tongue from the flagpole, we see the fire truck has arrived and that a police car has just pulled in from the left and has stopped. The shot changes to show Ralphie saying "Oh no," and then another closer shot from outside, during which the police car is again pulling up at the very same spot. (00:19:05)
Continuity mistake: When everyone is shown in a close up as they open up their Christmas presents, take a look at the father. While he is opening his gift, he has a yellow tie around his neck. When he says, "Didn't I get a tie this year?" the tie is not around his neck anymore.
Continuity mistake: Near the beginning, when Ralphie runs from his house to catch up to Flick, on the way to school, notice that Flick is carrying a school book, which has a beige cover visible to the camera. In the next shot Schwartz joins the group from the very next house on the block, and within a time span of approximately two seconds, Flick's book cover has become blue in color. (00:13:50)
Continuity mistake: When the teacher collects all the fake buck teeth from the entire class in one hand, there is no way she can hold all twenty sets of teeth in one hand as we're expected to believe. (20 because there are four rows of five desks in the classroom.) She also doesn't deposit anywhere near twenty sets of teeth when we see her hand pour them in the desk drawer.
Answer: It's most likely a reference to the twin-bed movie standards from the time in which the movie takes place (late '30s to early '40s).