I Miss U all my Blog

And so the holidays rolled around again and I had to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. While this movie may have lost a little of it’s magic for me over time, there is still nothing like watching the Griswald’s attempt to have an old fashioned family Christmas. I do think this is a Christmas classic the likes of the claymation Rudolph videos and frosty cartoons.

Clark: Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.

Again I watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. It’s a Christmas movie and people wanted to watch it on Christmas day, what can I say? Watching this movie again so soon after I last saw it made me appreciate the yuppie neighbors that live next to the Griswold family – Todd and Margo.

While the Griswold’s have their faults and would undoubtedly be annoying to live next to Todd and Margo are equally annoying in a while different way. Todd and Marge are the yuppie perfectionist couple that you have to hate. From their matching work out clothes to ultra modern CD player and tasteful lack of a Christmas tree Tood and Margo are the kind of couple who wouldn’t have a dog because it might track dirt into the house. They detest living next to someone so loud, disorganized and utterly un-modern as Clark Griswold. The comic disdain that drips from Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Nicholas Guest as this couple is perfectly overstated and bring the perfect contrast to Clark and Ellen Griswold.

While I really don’t need to watch this movie again until at least next December I do still like this movie. However, I do think it is a film that if I watch it too many times too close together the charm will wear off and I will simply be annoyed by Clarks oh-so-clumsy antics. As much as I like Chevy Chase he is no Dick Van Dyke.

Margo: I hope he falls and breaks his neck.
Todd: Oh, I'm sure he'll fall. But I don't think we're lucky enough for him to break his neck.

When I was a kid my favorite movie to watch during the holidays was National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. To this day I don’t know if anything in my young life made me laugh harder than the first time I saw the squirrel and the Christmas tree. I partially blame this film for my little brother’s obsession with Christmas lights.

This is a modern screwball comedy at its best. Christmas Vacation is what we have nightmares about actually happening when we are forced into large family holiday gathering lived out by Chevy Chase and his fictional family. It becomes funny because it’s extreme cases of holiday situations – and it’s not happening to us. From chopping down his own Christmas tree to lighting the house Clark wants his Christmas to be perfect and doesn’t want to admit that his plans have gotten way out of hand and everything that can go wrong does go wrong.

I do recommend watching this movie at least once a Christmas and it will help to cure some of the holiday blues. After all, I don’t think most of us have to deal with a trailer park cousin dropping in unexpectedly and dumping his RV’s sewage tank into our sewer creating a methane gas buildup that later blows the front yard to hades. You’ll find something to laugh at.

Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Writer: John Hughes
Clark Griswold: Chevy Chase
Ellen Griswold: Beverly D’Angelo
Audrey Griswold: Juliette Lewis
Rusty Griswold: Johnny Galecki
Clark Griswold Sr.: John Randolph
Nora Griswold: Diane Ladd
Art Smith: EG Marshall
Frances Smith: Doris Roberts
Cousin Eddie: Randy Quaid

Clark: We're kicking off our fun old fashion family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols.
Audrey: We're not coming all the way out here just to get one of those stupid ties with Santa Clauses on it are we?
Clark: No, I have one of those at home.