By Robert Scucci
| Published 28 seconds ago
With the holiday season fast approaching, it’s time for me to carry on the Thanksgiving tradition that I actually enjoy more than eating turkey and pawning leftovers off on my guests. That’s right, once the company leaves, the lights are dimmed, and the cranberry sauce congealed enough to cleanly scrape off the plate and directly into the garbage, it’s time to dig through the DVD bin and fire up 1989’s Christmas Vacation, a movie I’ve watched every Thanksgiving evening for longer than I can consciously remember.
Everybody’s family is dysfunctional to some extent, my own included, and I think that’s why films like Christmas Vacation are so universally loved. They lean into our insecurities about having the perfect family holiday by showing us how things could actually go a whole lot worse than we could ever imagine.
The next time you’re wondering if the in-laws are going to drive you up a wall this holiday season, it’s in your best interest to watch Christmas Vacation. You’ll feel better about your own situation after watching the Griswold family crumble under the pressure to find the perfect Christmas tree, decorate the house, prepare the dinner spread, and make it to New Year’s Eve in one piece.
The Best Entry To The Vacation Franchise By A Country Mile
Christmas Vacation, like the National Lampoon Vacation films that came before it, centers on the Griswold family, who can never catch a break. Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is his usual uptight self as he plans the perfect holiday and is hellbent on going all out this year. The first mishap involves dragging his wife, Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), son, Rusty (Johnny Galecki), and daughter, Audrey (Juliette Lewis), out to the middle of nowhere to find the perfect Christmas tree. The plan backfires immediately and continues to backfire throughout the film’s run, as the tree is absolutely massive and causes a significant amount of collateral damage whenever the opportunity presents itself to the menacing inanimate object.
Planning to spend his upcoming Christmas bonus on an in-ground swimming pool, Clark thinks he’s got everything figured out and races to finish decking the halls before company begins to arrive. His plans are constantly foiled by the arrival of his parents, Clark (John Randolph) and Nora (Diane Ladd), and Ellen’s parents, Art (E.G. Marshall) and Frances (Doris Roberts). If dealing with the parents isn’t enough chaos to handle, the Griswold family is graced with the presence of Ellen’s cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and her husband, Eddie (Randy Quaid), who aren’t exactly in tune with social norms or etiquette. Adding insult to injury are Clark’s uncle and aunt, Bethany (Mae Questel) and Lewis (William Hickey), whose senility only adds to the looming holiday chaos that’s about to unfold.
The Disasters Take Center Stage
Each character introduced to Christmas Vacation’s premise allows for effortless escalation as Clark tries to string the house up with thousands of lights, take the kids on a disastrous sledding trip, mitigate familial fallout in cramped quarters, deal with power outages, fires, burnt turkey, Eddie’s nuclear RV septic tank, and a dozen other mishaps that would break down even the most stoic of men. Clark, however, isn’t a stoic man. He’s high-strung, manic, and stressed to the max by the external forces of extended family while trying his hardest to keep it together, wondering when he’ll receive the Christmas bonus he already spent in advance on his surprise swimming pool.
Throw some particularly potent eggnog and a chainsaw into the equation, and Christmas Vacation becomes a total disaster class in how not to handle the holidays if you don’t want your family to see you go completely off the wall when your buttons are pushed just a little too hard. Every wholesome setup leads to an irrecoverable incident, causes profound amounts of structural damage, and even puts lives at risk. It’s up to the Griswold family to save the holiday from themselves, even if the holiday is already well past the point of no return.
Come For The Merriment, Stay For The Meltdowns
Christmas Vacation is one of those excessively explosive holiday films that never seems to get old because every escalation that feels like the final holiday boss gets topped before anyone can recover from whatever just happened to them. Like the Home Alone films, it offers an impossible amount of collateral damage that no real family could ever reasonably survive. Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, they do, and it’s the perfect way to prepare for the holidays if you have your reservations about being a guest or taking in guests of your own.
Leaning hard into its slapstick charm, Christmas Vacation is relentless in its delivery, vibrantly violent, and surprisingly wholesome if you consider what’s actually at stake here. Clark Griswold may become increasingly unhinged during his holiday odyssey, but it’s because he cares so deeply about his family that he gets blinded by his own ambition. The next time you’re getting grilled by the in-laws for your improper ornament placement, just remember that it’s a minor detail that can easily be rectified, unlike a rabid squirrel hiding in your Christmas tree that will pick the perfect moment to embark on its nutty rampage.
Christmas Vacation is streaming on Max.
