In his quixotic quest to gift people with the greatest Christmas ever, Clark Griswold and I are soulmates. There is no better feeling than the warmth you feel in the pit of your stomach while fondly looking back on your family holiday memories. Though we did manage to get the entire family together in the same location for a few Christmases (and they were spectacular!), we generally weren’t able to brave the east coast winter travel from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania every year. That didn’t put a damper on my family holidays growing up though; the Christmases that burn the brightest in my memory are the ones I spent with just my parents in Massachusetts. The crisp, clean air surrounding you wherever you went, the snow on the ground, and being huddled around our fireplace right next to our ornament-laden Christmas tree that had the toy train set running around it—it was idyllic, Norman Rockwell stuff. As soon as the Christmas tunes hit the radio they never stopped playing until well after New Year’s because we wanted to soak in every second of the warm hot cocoa feeling in the soul. We were also heavily involved in volunteering, as my mother ran the church outreach program for many years, eventually even founding an ecumenical council that brought together all of the churches in the area to more effectively serve the community. During the holiday season there were usually more opportunities in the form of food drives, clothing drives, food delivery, and serving hot meals to the poor and homeless.
Lest I have given the impression that I was a selfless pious child let me tell you that growing up an only child, Christmas to me was the most wonderfully insane day. One year my parents went wild, literally dumping out trash bags full of wrapped gifts for me. I was so lucky to have such generous parents. Every toy, every cassette, every video game, every movie--if it was a hot item in the 1980s or early 1990s, believe me I had it. I became so cocky with the idea that Santa could provide me with anything that I desired that I would ask for increasingly crazy things, culminating with one Christmas writing a letter to Santa asking for a robot that walked, talked, and ate human food. I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face when I was reading that Santa letter to him. He took a second and then thoughtfully and gently said, “John, I don’t know if Santa is going to be able to deliver that gift.” No robot was received that year, but I didn’t even have a chance to be disappointed with all the other bounty of gifts.
My parents have a preternatural ability to always provide the perfect gift for everyone and that is a trait that they passed on to me. While I still love receiving gifts and buying all kinds of rare vinyl for myself (oh, my aching credit card bill!), I find now that I am older that I take just as much pleasure, if not more, by giving people the perfect gift. All you have to do is listen to people talk about the things that they love to discover what would be exactly right for them and as soon as you see a person’s eyes light up from your gift and they say, “How did you know to get me this?” you become hooked on giving. For me, gift giving is not just a holiday event but rather a year-round activity. In fact, I enjoy giving gifts even more when people aren’t expecting anything at all.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is a comfort movie because it highlights all of the irritating things about Christmas but in the end brings it all back around for a happy ending – we even get to see Santa and his reindeer flying off into the night. And that to me is everything that Christmas is about. It’s a wonderful joyous light inside of us that never dims - even though my childhood home is no longer in the family, my father has long since passed away, and my mother and I live on the opposite sides of the country, the spirit of Christmas remains alive in us and stronger than ever. Life has many ups and downs for everyone, but choosing to celebrate the joy of life, love, and family is a tradition of which I will never tire. Every Christmas morning when I wake up and go into the living room and share presents with my wife over coffee and we are snug in our pjs I think back to the Christmases of my youth and look back fondly. Just like when I was a kid we keep the Christmas music going non-stop and we love it. Now that I am older, I truly understand the meaning of the song “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and though I cannot turn back time I will surely be able to spend a moment with my parents in my old home in my mind.
Comfort Films Episode 10: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Released December 10, 2021)
