# In what year did you think 'A Christmas Story' was set? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 30, 2014, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511 "2014-12-30T06:10:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/41 "2014-12-31T01:16:48Z")
I would have guessed “about 1940”, just based on general styles and such. That’s closer to “late 30s” than it is to “late 40s”, so that’s what I picked in the poll. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/42 "2014-12-31T04:51:42Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I think the war-years stories of Company K, Banjo Butt, Lonesome Ernie and the like take place in an alternate universe from the Ralphie stories. Otherwise _A Christmas Story_ takes place in 1936 at the **latest**. No, the WoO gives it a beginning date of 1939. The costumes look too much like the MGM movie to be referencing the books or another movie, and anyway, why would they? All the earlier versions of the films were silent films with the latest from 1925, and being set in Oz, but not having the familiar characters, and the original book came out in 1901. Plus, the movie witch doesn’t look like any witch described in any of the books. Plus, the Red Ryder BB gun came out in 1938. It’s possible the narrator is conflating memories, and he wanted the BB gun one year, and saw the parade with the WoO characters the following year, and it was after that, that he got his decoder-- he could have seen the parade in 1939, and then just a few months later gotten a 1940 decoder. It’s also possible that a few events happened as early as 1936, but the _major_ event of the story, wanting and getting the BB gun, had to be the Christmas of 1938, 39 or 40. The problem with 1941 is that aside from the fact that you might expect a reference to protecting himself from Japanese, the BB gun has been around a while, and Ralphie has probably coveted it for more than once Christmas. We might expect to hear the narrator tell us that the previous year’s hints and schemes were too subtle, and not bold enough, so this year, he was pulling out all the stops, or something. You might conflate memories of adjacent years, but if Ralphie is nine when he gets the gun, and let’s say that is 1938, the year it came out, then he was born in 1929. That means he was 7 in 1936, and too young for a lot of the exploits of the film. Anyway, if we accept that the narrator is conflating memories, and there is no one year, I think the “official” year for the film is the year Ralphie got the Red Ryder BB gun, which has to be 38 or 39. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/43 "2014-12-31T22:58:46Z")
Early 40’s I always thought, once I thought anything. It’s not the 30’s in any case. Cite: They said it was the 40’s in the description TBS and TNT had for it during this year’s marathon. Marathons… does it count as one marathon or two when they’re simultaneous\>??? ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/44 "2015-01-01T00:14:24Z")
Maybe we can just say that we’re way overthinking this (I’m guilty of that too). Let the movie be set in 1939 or 1940, cause as mentioned above there are a lot of visual clues in the movie to that effect, and I think only the one “telling mistake” of using a early 1950s police car in the frozen tongue scene (oops, wrong prop). Someone also mentioned the mother’s hair style is more 1980s than 1930s, oh well. Let the movie’s time-setting have no actual connection to Jean Shepherd’s alter-ego Ralph, the hero of the Red Ryder Christmas story (which was eventually published in the book “In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash”) that takes place in 1937 - “Snow White” was the centerpiece of Goldblatt’s Christmas window display, along with Amos and Andy’s Taxi, Dionne Quintuplets dolls, and toy American tanks leading a charge against Scottish Highlanders (“History has always been vague in Indiana”). No Ovaltine, no Easter Ham, no epic battles with Scut Farkus, no glow of Electric Sex - those are all different stories. However, there is a wrapper story (from the original published article) of the narrator as an adult eating in an Automat and sharing a table with an outspoken “nanny-state” elderly woman who wanted to “disarm the toy industry” (other stories in the book have such wrapper stories, including the adult narrator’s failed attempt to pick up a lesbian at the art museum, which of course segues into the famous Leg Lamp prize story) - in fact, the whole book itself is one meta wrapper, with the narrator returning to his old home town of Hohman in the 1960s and more or less spending an afternoon at a bar owned by his childhood friend Flick, swapping the aforementioned stories. BTW, in that book Ralph visits the 1933 Chicago World’s fair, and its implied he’s not a mere 3 years old when he does. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/45 "2015-01-01T16:58:36Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Well, not late 40s but early 40s. Definitely post-Depression. Most people/economists consider the early 40s (pre-war) to be Depression era, not post Depression. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/46 "2015-01-01T17:30:20Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The movie feels like late 40s to me, not sure why. It’s in colour. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/47 "2015-01-01T19:09:02Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > For me, when I see a movie in color, it always feels like 50’s or later. How about _Saving Private Ryan_? Or _Ben Hur_? (IOW, a movie can be about a certain time without looking like it was made in that time.) ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/48 "2015-01-01T19:18:43Z")
I think a big part of the “feel” thing is [mom’s hairstyle](http://www.captainbluehen.com/wp-content/OldManLegLamp.jpg), which seems decidedly non-1930s. Funny how little things can make a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/49 "2015-01-01T21:50:19Z")
I think the film was made before people made a hobby of picking apart movies from DVD on the internet. And for budgetary reasons, there are some anachronisms (or call them ‘mistakes’) with things like the model year of some of the vehicles that appeared briefly. You try finding 75 working vehicles in one city that would have been on the road in 1963, for example. I always figured the story took place around 39-40. Post Wizard of Oz and Pre-Pearl Harbor. The depression was mostly over by then, but there were still some echos of it lingering. The family gathered around a big radio. If it was supposed to be post-war, I suspect there might have been some mention of Television. Maybe a round CRT Dumont on display in a store window. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/50 "2015-01-02T19:29:08Z")
I’ll admit to being a little ignorant about details of 1930-50 American life other than the big historical events, but the movie always struck me as late 40’s based on the level of prosperity we seem to see. I’m not saying that I expect to see dust-bowls and hobos everywhere - prosperity and poverty have always co-existed. But we do see a very consumer-oriented Christmas that I thought would be more typical of the relatively prosperous post-war period. As another example, this is a family who can buy expensive presents, have their Christmas feast ruined and still afford to eat out as an alternative. We also don’t see the Depression-era conventions I heard so much about from my older relatives: things like saving wrapping paper for re-use, and raising chickens in the back yard for eggs. (That era of my family would have been Irish living around San Francisco, Italians living near Los Angeles and Poles living in the coal-mining regions of Pennsylvania. All of them immigrated to the US in the 1880-1910 period. In fact, my wife also heard similar stories from her family, who were Irish/German from a much earlier period of immigration and living in Texas.) The things I see in the movie just don’t fit the lifestyles of any of our relatives until the late 40’s. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/51 "2015-01-03T04:58:57Z")
Despite [iconic pictures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression#mediaviewer/File:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg) of the depression, the whole world didn’t turn to dust and soup kitchens for 10 years. Detroit was cranking out cars, and people were buying them. Unemployment reached as high as 25%, but it wasn’t 100%. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/52 "2015-01-03T06:07:47Z")
So this is kind of funny…I misread the title and thought it was asking when “A Christmas CAROL” was set. I started reading the replies (and saw the two choices in the poll) and I thought “What? There’s no way it was set ANY time in the 1900s. Hell, Dickens even wrote it in the 1800s, so it must be set sometime then, I’d guess in the mid to late 1800. But 1940-1950? What the hell…?” Even when I reread the title (and noticed the name “Ralphie”) and had that “Ahhh, okay…” moment, I still wouldn’t have guessed either choice. I guess I must be bad with era times, but without looking it up or reading any reply in his topic, I would have guessed early to mid 30s. 1939-1940 just seems a little too late. Not by much, just by a little (maybe a few years). I had forgotten the Wizard of Oz characters show up in it, though. I knew that came out in 1939, but had I not remembered that part (and I didn’t), then it’s like I said: 1933-1935 would have been my guess. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2015, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511/53 "2015-01-03T06:12:38Z")
I’ll be honest, I thought it was the 50s. But I haven’t seen it in its entirety since I was about 8, and what bits I’ve seen/seen referenced since haven’t prompted me to re-experience it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-what-year-did-you-think-a-christmas-story-was-set/708511.md?page=2)