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I realized this morning, in the quiet house and the wee hours of "haven't had enough sleep," that I don't think there's anything that can as vividly, as reflexively, call to mind the voices of my parents and the laughter of my brother, the textures and sights and sounds of my parents' living room, as effectively as this one stupid comedy movie from the 80s.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation has always been my parents' holiday go-to. It doesn't quite seem their sense of humor, well not my mom's anyway, and I don't know how it got to be this way, I just remember watching it all the time. I definitely started when my sheltered childhood still left me innocent enough to be baffled at the sexual jokes and utterly ignorant of what some of the swear words meant.
But because we always watched it, every year, and because my parents are such creatures of habit, I know just which punchlines my dad will say before they get said on screen, I know just which logistical plot holes my mom will poke at, saying "that would never really happen like that!" to a movie where nothing that happens is at all plausible because that's not the point. I know which slapstick moments my brother would giggle at and rewind the well-worn VHS copy to play over and over.
I had to get myself a DVD copy when I went to college. I'd still see them all after finals for Christmas of course, but Christmas Vacation-watching isn't a Christmas activity. It's an advent activity actually: something done as part of the preparation, the old incarnations repeated again. I've left it pretty late this year actually, but I didn't want to miss it entirely.
Since I had to get my own copy, I've always worried maybe it'll be too bitter along with the sweetness, too much a reminder of how alone I am when I watch this damn silly bigoted 80s movie, because I'm really sensitive to that kind of bittersweetness. But somehow it never has been too much, it's always only ever been good for me, a surprisingly uncomplicated connection I was glad to renew in this year where nothing else Christmas-y is happening as it always had done before.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation has always been my parents' holiday go-to. It doesn't quite seem their sense of humor, well not my mom's anyway, and I don't know how it got to be this way, I just remember watching it all the time. I definitely started when my sheltered childhood still left me innocent enough to be baffled at the sexual jokes and utterly ignorant of what some of the swear words meant.
But because we always watched it, every year, and because my parents are such creatures of habit, I know just which punchlines my dad will say before they get said on screen, I know just which logistical plot holes my mom will poke at, saying "that would never really happen like that!" to a movie where nothing that happens is at all plausible because that's not the point. I know which slapstick moments my brother would giggle at and rewind the well-worn VHS copy to play over and over.
I had to get myself a DVD copy when I went to college. I'd still see them all after finals for Christmas of course, but Christmas Vacation-watching isn't a Christmas activity. It's an advent activity actually: something done as part of the preparation, the old incarnations repeated again. I've left it pretty late this year actually, but I didn't want to miss it entirely.
Since I had to get my own copy, I've always worried maybe it'll be too bitter along with the sweetness, too much a reminder of how alone I am when I watch this damn silly bigoted 80s movie, because I'm really sensitive to that kind of bittersweetness. But somehow it never has been too much, it's always only ever been good for me, a surprisingly uncomplicated connection I was glad to renew in this year where nothing else Christmas-y is happening as it always had done before.