Watch the Griswolds’ holiday go up in flames with National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Holidays never seem to go as planned — no matter how hard a person might work to make everything “perfect” on any given special day, the universe will more often than not bend toward its destruction.

At least that’s the engine of cosmic chaos at work in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the 1989 classic film depicting suburban Chicago dad Clark Griswold’s ill-fated attempts to give his family what he considers the quintessential yuletide experience.

From the oversized tree to the shopping to the faulty Christmas lights, things go from bad to worse as Clark (Chevy Chase), his wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), and kids Audrey and Rusty (Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki, respectively) weather a gauntlet of festive disasters.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Griswold’s toxic family members descend on them, first with the incessant bickering of Clark’s parents, then his cousin’s hillbilly family decamps in their RV/home and — in the performance of a lifetime — Randy Quaid steals every scene as cousin-in-law Eddie “Shitter Was Full!” Johnson.

Clark tries to maintain a positive outlook through it all, but even that falls to the cruel forces of holiday mayhem when it becomes clear that his boss isn’t going to give him the Christmas bonus he desperately needs to stay financially afloat through the season. How that gets resolved is the piece de resistance of this iconic Christmas tale.

The Panida Theater will screen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation as part of its $5 movie series Friday, Dec. 6, with doors at 6:30 p.m. and the show at 7 p.m. Get tickets at panida.org or at the door, 300 N. First Ave., in downtown Sandpoint.