Gather ’round for a history lesson about A Christmas Story’s leg lamp
The unusual light fixture was apparently a promo item for Nehi Soda
Of the many scenes that mildly frightened and generally confused kids when they watched A Christmas Story with no context for its late ’30s setting, the parents’ argument over a lamp shaped like a woman’s leg ranks up there with the hostile department store Santa and the furnace meltdown. Even knowing why Mrs. Parker isn’t keen on displaying the lamp in the front window of her Midwest home, the circumstances that led to her husband winning a prize that consists of a fishnet-wearing limb remained pretty confusing.
As it turns out, the leg lamp, like so many of the often-unsettling childhood reminiscences used in the movie, is drawn from author Jean Shepherd’s book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, a novel about a kid growing up in the first half of the 20th century that A Christmas Story was based on.