When Santa got stuck up the chimney

December 12, 2020 3:03 AM

I'm looking for scenes in Christmas films where people suffer an injury or accident. This is for a Christmas-themed first aid training, so if treatment, first aid or any other kind of response is shown then all the better, but also not required. Comical/cartoonish/unrealistic is fine.

I've been asked to run a Christmas-themed training session for my volunteer first aid unit. The only things I've been able to think of so far are Santa falling off the roof in the Santa Clause, and Bruce Willis treading on glass in Die Hard. I'm sure there are more.

posted by Acheman to Grab Bag (19 answers total)

Best answer: You can probably do the whole thing from Home Alone. So many accidents.
posted by kjs4 at 3:21 AM on December 12, 2020 [13 favorites]

Best answer: National Lampoon's Christmas Concussion Vacation? And in addition to the injuries incurred by his character apparently Chevy Chase actually broke his little finger during one scene.

In It's a Wonderful Life there's the near-drowning of Harry Bailey at the beginning, George's drunken car crash, and I think some slip and fall action during the various times he's running through town. Oh and George's mouth is bleeding at various points in the movie from being punched.

Phil Davis fakes a "small compound fracture" in White Christmas.
posted by mskyle at 4:34 AM on December 12, 2020 [4 favorites]

Best answer: When the boy stuck his tongue to the flagpole in A Christmas Story.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:54 AM on December 12, 2020 [4 favorites]

Best answer: In Miracle on 34th Street, the psychologist gets a whack on the head from Santa and treats the "injury," if I recall correctly, by lying down with an ice pack.
posted by evilmomlady at 5:34 AM on December 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

Carol Kane in Scrooged is hysterical. The truth is painful. And my personal favorite, it's a toaster!
posted by evilmomlady at 5:43 AM on December 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Grimlins includes a long discussion of someone literally getting stuck in a chimney and dying. I don't remember if there are on screen representations of it or not.

The heist in Bad Santa is full of cartoony, dangerous events.
posted by eotvos at 6:18 AM on December 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There's also the classic SNL Ford tree trimming fall.
posted by eotvos at 6:25 AM on December 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Daddy’s Home 2! We’ve got falling from rooftops, electrocution, sledding accident, over heating, inebriated kids, being pelted with ice snowballs, hypothermia/being left in the cold, potential wolf attack, gunshot wound, a meltdown, grown men tussling, the list goes on.

And honestly one of my favorite holiday movies.
posted by Sassyfras at 6:30 AM on December 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!, a classic about a boy getting a BB gun.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:31 AM on December 12, 2020 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Yeah I think Gremlins has a scene of Dick Miller in a Santa suit getting run over by a tractor or a Zamboni or something, which would be perfection.
posted by ejs at 7:12 AM on December 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

The Santa Clause features Santa himself being injured from a great fall.
posted by China Grover at 7:13 AM on December 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: A Charlie Brown Christmas features a couple of kids hitting a tree while ice skating.

In addition to Harry’s near-drowning in It’s a Wonderful Life, the plot is of course kicked into motion when Clarence jumps into a river and is rescued by George. But yeah, as mentioned, It’s a Wonderful Life has numerous minor injuries.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:02 AM on December 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

There’s a lot of material in Die Hard, but I’d personally go with the barefoot walking over broken glass.
posted by coppermoss at 8:03 AM on December 12, 2020 [4 favorites]

It's not Christmas-y, but the German industrial safety awareness film, "Forklift Driver Klaus" is a classic.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:20 AM on December 12, 2020 [3 favorites]

Best answer: In Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Oscar the Grouch falls down a flight of stairs after letting go while playing 'crack the whip' at the ice rink. Also, Big Bird falls asleep in the snow and might have frostbite. Oscar also delivers some pretty sick burns, but they're mostly metaphorical.
posted by Gray Duck at 9:04 AM on December 12, 2020 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Abby falls off a roof while looking at Christmas lights in the beginning of Happiest Season. There are also some pretty great and very physical fight scenes at the end.
posted by dizziest at 10:09 AM on December 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The Man Who Came To Dinner is set at Christmas, and the event that sets the plot in motion is Sheridan Whiteside falling and breaking his hip (he also falls again at the end of the movie.)

The Ref is also set at Christmas, and the Denis Leary character gets bitten by a dog toward the beginning of the movie.

In Christmas in Connecticut, the beginning of the movie has the destroyer of love interest Jefferson Jones and his partner being sunk by the Germans and they float adrift in a raft for eighteen days. (This part is not long.) When they are rescued, they are sent to a hospital and Jefferson has to follow a stringent diet imposed by the doctors. (Hospital scenes last a bit longer.)
posted by gudrun at 11:21 AM on December 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

1972 Tales From The Crypt starring Joan Collins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Xn6B4_srI
posted by MrGeorgeKaplan at 9:48 PM on December 12, 2020

Response by poster: Thanks for these answers! In the end I went for the Santa Clause (fall, spinal injury); It's A Wonderful Life (fall into freezing water); Christmas Eve On Sesame Street (ice skating straight into barrier); Die Hard (lacerations to feet); Gremlins (elderly female propelled out of window due to malfunctioning stairlift) and Home Alone (numerous injuries).

I've marked all those answers as 'best' which fit the bill, and did not just repeat the examples I gave in the OP.
posted by Acheman at 1:41 AM on December 29, 2020 [1 favorite]