Film Advent Calendar- Day 2: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Seasons Greetings my Movie Geeks!
The first of December saw the house become illuminated with sparkly Christmas lights. In 1989 the First of December saw the release of…
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
This was the third in the series of National Lampoon’s Vacation series. Following on from Vacation (1983) and European Vacation (1985). It was written by John Hughes and has all the hallmarks of his Chicago based movies.
Chevy Chase returns as Clark Griswold, the hapless, accident-prone but always (well apart from this film) positive family man. It’s a few weeks until Christmas and Clark has decided to get into the Christmas spirit. His first point of call, cutting down a Christmas tree.
It’s clear from the very beginning that he loves this time of year, and yet everything and everyone seems to stand in his way.
The film has heart at the same time as showing how difficult Christmas can be with families visiting. The whole film is a series of moments that attempt to dampen Clark’s Christmas spirit.
From the tree blowing up to the turkey being slightly dry, it’s not until his Christmas bonus doesn’t come through that he finally cracks. But at least he’s having a better Christmas than Margot and Todd!
The film is almost a snippet of real life peppered with some over the top moments like the sledging scene. But these moments are perfectly bookended with Chevy Chase’ facial expressions.
I would recommend watching this film before Christmas. It’s more of a build-up to Christmas movie than a Christmas Eve one. But the one thing I have taken from this film (other than my wife calling me Clark) is Clark’s affinity for Christmas lights.
Yes, I was at the top of my house yesterday!
Thanks for reading and make sure you open tomorrow’s Advent Calendar Door and check back to yesterday’s.
