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)
Visible crew/equipment: During the scene where Ralphie looks out of his window at his snow covered back yard, there is a hat-wearing crew member and some black equipment visible in the lower left of the screen.
Other mistake: When Pierre Andre is giving the members of the "Secret Society" their message, listen carefully. The first number is 12. Towards the end of the message he says 12 again. Since the first letter of the first word is "B", and there are no other "B's" in the entire message, I guess this is another one that slipped by the editor. They also say to set pins to B2, so 12 can't be B.
Visible crew/equipment: Camera lights (and perhaps some crew, barely) can be seen in Ralphie's sunglasses, when he is imagining himself as a blind person.
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.
Other mistake: When the leg lamp is set up and turned on, the entire leg lights up. Trouble is, when you first see it, you can see there is no light in it, nor a fixture. Later, after it is broken, you again see no lighting of any kind in the leg. I don't think the light from its position on top of the leg would have illuminated the leg all the way down to the shoe at the bottom.
Factual error: The movie was set in the mid-to-late 1940s, however, the red wagons shown in the display in Higbee's corner window at the beginning of the film, bear a Radio Flyer script logo which was designed in 1967. (00:03:10)
Continuity mistake: When they set up the lamp for the first time, you can see the mom turn away from the window and put her hands on Ralphie's shoulders from the dad's point of view, outside. Then when the camera shifts inside, she does it again.
Revealing mistake: When Ralphie is walking along after getting the C+ on his theme, he gets hit with a "snowball sandwich." if you look closely at his face and eyes, you can see that he has his eyes closed in expectation of getting hit.
Continuity mistake: When Randy shows Mommy "how the piggies eat", the shots are obviously out of sequence. There are times when the amount of mashed potatoes on the plate greatly increases from the shot before. And watch the meat loaf a couple shots just before the scene ends. Three large pieces of meat loaf lie scattered on Randy's place mat, but they instantly disappear in the next wide shot.
Continuity mistake: In Ralph's dream sequence of being blind by "soap poisoning", the lenses of his shades go from opaque with a reflective finish, to a matte finish and back.
Factual error: This film takes place in the mid-to-late 40s. The doorknobs throughout Ralphie's house are too modern for the type of doorknobs used in homes built in that era. This is especially obvious in the kitchen scene when the furnace is smoking and you see the cellar door and in the bathroom scene, when Ralphie is decoding the "secret" message from Pierre Andre. No bathroom door of that era would have a doorknob like the one shown in the film.
Continuity mistake: When Ralphie and the boys first meet Scut Farkas and Grover Dill, Grover Dill's zipper jacket is up all the way and then, it's halfway down. It keeps changing from up to down.
Audio problem: When Ralphie's father opens the crate containing the leg lamp, he says, "Well, it could be anything." Then his mother says, "Maybe they forgot" without moving her lips. Obviously dubbed in later.
Continuity mistake: When the delivery men are wheeling the "major award" into the doorway, it has a rope tied around it. As the camera angle moves inside the house, the rope is gone.
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).