What you fail to realize is that Die Hard is, in fact, an unacknowledged sequel to A Christmas Story. Although the identities of the participants have been changed to protect the innocent, Ralphie grows up to become none other than ‘John McClane’, a NYPD officer with a gift for creative profanity leaned from his father and an affection for his H&K MP-5 submachine gun which he enjoys getting off spectacular hip shots. The experience in the Nakatomi building is in effect reliving his childhood experience unfettered by adult supervision, defeating the bully, removing clothing that he finds constricting, and shooting all manner of objects and people, as well as finally telling authority figures that they “just got buttfucked on national television”. And so, Die Hard is Ralphie’s ultimate Christmas dream come true.
Unless, of course, you subscribe to the notion that it is all jst a fantasy playing out in his imagination. But I see no reason to engage in errant speculation. The conventional interpretation is quite sufficient.
Stranger