National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: From Complexity to Simplicity

 So how is your December going?  Has your schedule filled up, your bank account and credit cards been challenged, decorations out and tree decorated?  Are your presents purchased and wrapped and Christmas cards mailed?  Just thinking about the answers to these questions make my heart race a little faster and my head start to hurt!  The vision of the prefect Christmas preparations and celebrations looms large in the American lenses of holiday cheer.  And why not - it is attainable if we work hard enough to make it so!  

However, there is a warning beacon flashing in our faces every December.  Well, maybe not a beacon but a character…and not just any character - it’s none other than Chevy Chase reprising his role as the fumbling and bumbling father, Clark Griswold.  National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is filled with stunts and bumps, excessive home decor and a burning Christmas Tree, family and neighbors, and even an RV illegally parked out in front of the chaos that is the Griswold home.  The movie is about one man’s mission to provide the perfect Christmas - for his family and, I believe, for himself.  And no matter how hard he tries the disappointments and failures begin to mount up.

The further into Christmas we travel with Clark the more desperate and exhausting his quest becomes.  He wants it all…needs it all…has to provide it all.  And what do we learn?  He cannot do it.  No matter how hard he tries, the stresses and strains of Christmas await Clark.  With each advancing Christmas piece to Clark’s Christmas puzzle we are greeted with the laughs and the tears and the manic responses.  I suspect we laugh so hard because we see a little bit of Clark Griswold in ourselves.  Maybe it’s the rush to get out your Christmas decorations up or to finish your Christmas shopping before everyone else.  Perhaps it’s sending out your Christmas cards or organizing your Christmas family gathering.  Whatever it may be, I suspect that you may find yourself making Christmas way more complicated than it needs to be.

When I turn to the the Gospels of Matthew and Luke I am confronted with simplicity.  An angel tells Joseph to take Mary as his wife and name the child she carries Jesus.  Off to Bethlehem they go because of a census - no room at the inn so they make their way to a stable where the baby is born.  They wrap the baby in swaddling clothes and lay him in a manger.  Meanwhile,  angels herald his coming to shepherds, the shepherds show up at the manger to see the baby - “the savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  And that’s it.  Story complete.  No craziness or mayhem.  There is nothing over the top - the simple story of the salvation of the world has begun.  And that’s all we really need.

Maybe when you watch Christmas Vacation you need to remind yourself why you are laughing so hard.  I suspect you have not burned down your Christmas tree and replaced it by cutting the tree down from the neighbor’s yard; and you probably haven’t had a relative show up to your house on Christmas Eve in an RV who pumped the waste sewage from said RV into the sewer.  And your probably haven’t kidnapped your boss because you received a subscription to a “jelly of the month club” instead of your normal Christmas bonus.  But you know you have your own Christmas chaos and complexities and this movie painfully and wonderfully reminds you of it.  So…stop!  Take a look at Matthew 1 and Luke 2.  Seek the simple - because there, lying in a bed of straw is the face of salvation, Christ the Lord.  And, I suspect,  that’s what we really need. 

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