In each of the film's three acts Ralphie makes his case to another adult and each time receives the same reply. When Ralphie asks his mother for a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, she refuses. Next, when Ralphie writes an essay about wanting the BB gun for Miss Shields, his teacher at Warren G. Harding Elementary School, Ralphie gets a C+, and Miss Shields warns him. Later, Ralphie asks a local department store's Santa Claus for a Red Ryder BB gun, and Santa tells him the same thing before pushing Ralphie down a long exit slide with his boot.
One day after he gets the C+ on his composition, Ralphie is hit in the face with a snowball thrown at him by the local bully, Scut Farkus and his sidekick Grover Dill. Ralphie begins to cry and Farkus teases and taunts him until he snaps. Ralphie charges Farkus and begins to pummel him. During the fight, Ralphie shouts profanity non-stop as he lands blow after blow to the squealing Farkus. When Grover attempts to intervene, Ralphie pushes him away and continues beating Farkus at will. Ralphie's brother, Randy, gets their mother, who pulls her son off the bully, and takes him home. This incident occurs shortly after Ralphie was punished for cursing while helping his father change a flat tire. Ralphie is worried about the cursing and is sure he will again be punished when his father gets home from work. Instead, Ralphie's mother tells his father about the fight casually at the dinner table. She then changes the subject of the conversation to an upcoming Chicago Bears game, distracting his father and getting Ralphie off the hook in the process.
On Christmas morning, Ralphie looks frantically for a box that would hold the BB gun to no avail. He and Randy have quite a few presents, but he is disappointed because he did not get the gun. His disappointment turns to joy as his father points out one last half-hidden present, ostensibly from Santa. As Ralphie unwraps the BB gun, Mr. Parker explains the purchase to his wife, stating that he had one himself when he was 8 years old.
Ralphie goes out to test his new gun, shooting at a paper target perched on top of a metal sign, and predictably gets a ricochet from the metal sign. This ricochet ends up hitting his cheek and glasses, sending them flying and knocking out a lens. While searching for the glasses, Ralphie inadvertently steps on and crushes the other side. When his mother hears him crying, he concocts a story about an icicle falling on him and breaking his glasses, which she believes. She takes him upstairs to dry his face and forgets to close the door. This allows a horde of the Bumpuses' (the Parkers' hillbilly neighbors) dogs, who frequently torment Ralphie's father, to enter the house and eat the Christmas turkey that is cooling on the kitchen table. Making a last-minute decision, Mr. Parker takes the family out to a Chinese restaurant where they have a hilarious time dining on duck which adult Ralphie calls "Chinese turkey".
The film ends with Ralphie lying in bed on Christmas night with his gun by his side. Randy is holding the toy Zeppelin he received. The voiceover states that this was the best present he had ever received or would ever receive.
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