Winter Wardrobe
The film dramatizes the reality of having to walk to school in the frigid cold of December in the Midwest. This experience is most recognizable through the visual image of Ralphie’s little brother Randy being wrapped up in heavy winter clothing beyond recognition. Ralphie says, “Preparing to go to school was like getting ready for extended deep-sea diving…My kid brother looked like a tick about to pop.” To this day, Randy's winter outfit remains a memorable image from the film.
Bullies
Ralphie's narration as an adult provides viewers with an exaggerated portrait of the bully that taunts him and his friends, Scut Farkus. Even the boy's name has a malicious ring to it, and Ralphie doubles down on this portrayal by saying, “Scut Farkus! What a rotten name…Scut Farkas, staring out at us with his yellow eyes. He had yellow eyes! So help me God, yellow eyes." Here, Ralphie describes Scut's menacing appearance to emphasize how terrified he and his friends are to cross paths with the bully.
The Bunny Outfit
The visual image of Ralphie wearing the ridiculously inappropriate bunny suit he gets for Christmas is one of the film's final jokes about adults' misunderstanding of children. Ralphie explains that his Aunt Clara, who sent him the outfit, "labored under the delusion that I was not only perpetually four years old, but also a girl." He follows this comment by saying, "my feet began to sweat as those two fluffy little bunnies with a blue button eye stared sappily up at me." Here, Ralphie emphasizes how strange and inappropriate the outfit is for him, a boy whose only request for Christmas was a BB gun.
The Bumpuses
The family's Christmas Day is suddenly derailed when the Bumpuses – the neighbors – lose control of their dogs, who run into Ralphie's house and eat the Christmas turkey their mother had just prepared. This moment is rife with suggestive imagery: the dogs racing in and out of the kitchen with pieces of turkey in their mouths is paired against chaotic music that implies what kind of household the Bumpuses must live in. Throughout the film, the Bumpuses and their crazy dogs become another recurring joke as Ralphie's family struggles to deal with their neighbors' antics.
