Xmas Eve at the ‘A Christmas Story’ House Will Cost You $2,495 (Plus $10 for the Bunny Suit)

It’s a dark and rainy Monday night in December, and as you slowly drive northwest up a slanted street, a festive mustard-yellow house at the corner gradually comes into view. Cheerful holiday lights line the porch roof, while a warm, yellow-orange glow illuminates the upper floors. As you get closer, the real star of the house becomes visible in the green-trimmed front window: a shapely leg lamp. A major award. Electric sex gleaming in the window.

This scene doesn’t take place on good old Cleveland Street in the years preceding World War II — but on West 11th Street in modern-day Tremont, a historic neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. In a case of life imitating art, the house with the fishnet-clad leg lamp is the very same residence bespectacled Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) and his family occupy in the 1983 film A Christmas Story. The beloved holiday season staple follows Ralphie as he dodges bullies, bad grades, cranky elves, and a whiny little brother on the way to getting his Christmas wish: a Red Ryder BB gun.

The residence is no novelty relic, however. In 2004, a Navy veteran named Brian Jones bought the house sight unseen on eBay for $150,000. Two years later, after an extensive renovation that restored many of the details seen in the film, the house from A Christmas Story opened to the public for tours. 

Under new ownership since 2023, the house today anchors a block-wide homage to the film. Next door is known as the Bumpus house, named for the dog-owning neighbors in the movie; across the street is a museum brimming with film memorabilia and contemporary Americana, and a large and lucrative gift shop. Super-fans can now stay overnight in an upstairs or downstairs suite in the Bumpus house and a loft in Ralphie’s house. (The latter is already booked on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for a cool $2,495 a night.) For a very reasonable $10, you can also rent a pink bunny suit just like Ralphie wore in the movie and tour the house while wearing it. 

Jonathan Kinney, assistant manager at House from A Christmas Story notes that the attraction draws more than 30,000 visitors annually, with attendance increasing “tenfold, easily” during the holiday season. Interestingly enough, the house also sees an uptick in attendance during the summer months; Kinney notes that people from Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cincinnati often work in a visit while in town to see their home baseball teams face off against the Cleveland Guardians.

The meticulous commitment to preserving the vintage vibe of A Christmas Story resonates.  “People arrive and they get out of the car and they go, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s really the house,’” Kinney says, while observing the appeal is “generational” for many. “People have fond memories of watching the movie with their parents — and now those kids are grown up and they have their own kids and want to experience it the same way they did.”

Despite the inclement weather on this Monday night, a dozen people have turned up for a guided tour of the house and surrounding environs. The group ranges in age from teenagers to older adults and includes several locals who are taking the tour for the first time. “I’ve only seen the movie a million times,” one says with a laugh. Even for expert-level Christmas Story fans, the tour is fascinating. Our knowledgeable guide relays lore about filming — for example, Jack Nicholson was almost cast as the loveably grumpy dad instead of Darren McGavin — in a confident and casual tone. After this history lesson, the group roams around the house and have their own A Christmas Story experience. 

Being there does feel like you’re stepping back in time, between the historic detail — well-worn copies of the New York Times from the 1930s and 1940s, period-specific comic books, a vintage radio playing an episode of Little Orphan Annie — and movie nods, like a paper graded C+ on Ralphie’s desk with “P.S. You’ll shoot your eye out” scrawled in red pen. Nobody crawls under the circa-1870 sink in the kitchen just like Ralphie’s younger brother Randy (Ian Petrella) did in the movie, although you’re allowed and even encouraged to do so. But a group of five friends crowds around the leg lamp for a photo, as if the light was a celebrity.

Across the street, the museum is equally impressive, with its multiple rooms crammed with behind-the-scenes film photos and memorabilia. There’s the Simplicity sewing pattern used to make the bunny suit; metal toys from the department store window display; several iconic outfits, like Randy’s bib and puffy maroon coat, the bathrobe worn by Ralphie’s mom (Melinda Dillon); and one of the six custom Red Ryder BB guns used in the movie. Our guide shares more trivia, too: Turns out, it didn’t snow in Cleveland while filming, so the “snow” was a combination of soap suds and now-banned carcinogenic firefighting foam.

After a quick trip to see the Parker family car, the tour ends in the gift shop, which features a dizzying array of A Christmas Story-branded merch — coffee mugs, shot glasses, T-shirts, ties, a rack full of bright pink bunny slippers — and several large displays of leg lamps of all sizes and price points. Unsurprisingly, these are popular. Earlier in the night, I spotted a man lugging a lampshade over his shoulder while walking to a car, having ostensibly purchased his own light. And now, as the store nears closing time, one of the tour participants contemplates what size leg lamp might look best in her house. Decades after the film’s release, the lure of this major award — and A Christmas Story itself — remains irresistible.