Continuity mistake: After seeing the dinner for tomorrow, Ralphie sits down and starts to pour some milk. The shot cuts to the cellar door, and back to Ralphie. He is just starting to pour the milk again.
Continuity mistake: When Ralphie (blind from "soap poisoning" in the dream sequence) comes up to the door, in the reflection on his shades, it looks like he's facing a white door. When the camera cuts to a shot from behind him, you see a green door with the gold colored horseshoe.
Revealing mistake: When Dad gets the bowling ball, it's already drilled, and obviously not for him. Watch how he holds it and puts it down. The holes look very small.
Continuity mistake: When Ralphie and Randy go see Santa at Higbee's, Santa's eyebrows are real bushy. And, a few seconds later, they're a lot thinner than what they were.
Continuity mistake: In the kitchen, after the father comes in to get warm water for his car, the 2 boxes of soap powder move from the left side of the sink to a wall shelf on the right.
Visible crew/equipment: During the parade, the camera moves in and back a couple of times and the operator's shadow is visible left screen. This is really obvious after the Wizard of Oz characters walk by.
Other mistake: When Ralphie has the fantasy about going blind, watch the Old Man when he asks how they could do what they did. He has his hand over his mouth, and he's trying to keep from laughing.
Continuity mistake: In the very beginning the camera is panning, showing Ralph's house next to an empty lot and continues past, showing that across the street is a corner house with hedges. So Ralph's front window would be staring up a street and a line of hedges running up the street. When his father wins the award, the neighbors have their backs to the hedges with the large white house in back of them. This would have them staring across the other street, not at Ralph's house.
Suggested correction: This is wrong. The hedge runs both up 11th St. (Cleveland St.) and Rowley Ave. You can tell this is the correct shot, which includes the side of the house (window and porch) behind the old man.
Factual error: Early in the film, while the kids are looking at the toys in the Higbee's store window, two uniformed soldiers are visible right behind the kids. The female soldier is wearing sergeant stripes on her sleeves, but the braid on her garrison cap is gold - a color reserved for commissioned officers.
Factual error: In the beginning of the movie, when they are in front of Higbees, there is an RTA sign on the building in the background. RTA in Cleveland did not exist until around 1975.
Other mistake: When the old man screws in the blue light bulb on the Christmas tree and the lights go out in the house, the living room remains dark while he changes the fuse. Meanwhile a fire is going in the fireplace, so the light from the fire would cast some light into the room.
Audio problem: During the Santa scenes, Ralphie and his brother are lying in the fluff at the bottom of the slide. You can still hear kids screaming because of Santa. Nobody else is sent down the slide at that point and the camera pans up to see Santa with a calm little girl on his lap. Where are the screams coming from?
Visible crew/equipment: When the mom is sitting on the floor holding the broken lamp, as the dad runs in, you can see the shadow of a boom mic near the mom's left shoulder.
Continuity mistake: When we see Flick stuck to the pole with our back to the school the background tree trunk has ample green growth sprouting out but later, when it's started snowing and he's being rescued, the growth is gone.
Revealing mistake: When they close up on the boys at the flagpole you can see what is probably a pole support bar going down at 45° from the flag pole. Though looking too straight for flexible tubing, this could alternatively be an air suction tube that was used in holding Flick's tongue to the pole.
Continuity mistake: First breakfast scene, the stack of toast moves from Randy's end of the table to Mom's end.
Continuity mistake: After Grover Dill tells the boys to stop, he drops the hand he's pointing with. A second later, he drops it again.
Factual error: In the opening street scene a Salvation Army band is playing Christmas carols. These arrangements were not written or published until the 1950's.
Revealing mistake: After Ralphie's dad loosens the first corner of the crate, it's very obvious the other corners were deliberately left unfastened to make it easier to remove the lid on camera.
Continuity mistake: When Ralphie and Randy go to see Santa (after the parade), their parents leave them alone to wait in line. Listen carefully to Santa in the background. You can hear him mention a boy who's wet and saying to get him off his lap as Ralphie and Randy go to wait in line. This is the same boy who we don't see until Ralphie and Randy are on the stairs leading up to Santa.
