National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (1989)

The Griswolds take the family truckster out on a Christmas tree hunting expedition. After participating in a road rage incident, he finds a gigantic tree that is too tall for the living room.

Clark (Chevy Chase) is excited to get his bonus from work this year as he intends to put in a pool. Getting into the Christmas spirit, he goes shopping with son Rusty (Johnny Galecki) and meets a sexy saleswoman who he later imagines skinny dipping in his new pool.

As Christmas gets closer, the in-laws (John Randolph, Diane Ladd, E.G. Marshall and Doris Roberts) come into town to stay with them for their fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. The usual family dynamic problems occur and Clark goes outside to put up his fantasy of lights. While doing so, he causes a sheet of ice to shoot out of his rain gutters that goes through the snotty, yupster neighbors house and destroys their fancy stereo. Later Clark makes a big show of turning the lights on, complete with drum roll, and they don't turn on. They work later when Ellen (Beverly D'angelo) figures out what switch to turn on. When the lights turn on, they are so bright that they blind the yuppie neighbors in the process. When Clark gets through hugging the relatives, he realizes that Ellen's cousins Catherine and Eddie (Randy Quaid) and kids have shown up to stay complete with dilapidated R.V. in the driveway.

On Christmas Eve, Uncle Lewis and Aunt Bethany arrive complete with a cat wrapped up in a box as a present. It is an awful evening with the cat getting electrocuted after playing with lights, a burned Christmas tree when Uncle Lewis lights it on fire, a dried out turkey thanks to Catherine and Clark finally gets his bonus in the form of a month subscription to the jelly of the month club. This was NOT the bonus that Clark was hoping for.

Clark goes ballistic and yells at everyone prompting Eddie to round up Clark's boss and bring him to the house. In the meantime, Clark WILL have a tree and cuts down the tree in their front yard. In the process, he breaks the neighbors window. Once the tree is put up, there is a "funny squeaky sound" and a squirrel jumps out of the tree and is let loose in the house. A huge mess is made after a chase and the squirrel runs out of the house. When Clark's boss arrives, he yells at him for not giving him a bonus (they must not have a recession there). Clark's boss sees that he was being cheap as opposed to not having the money and decides to give Clark his bonus plus another 20%. A few minutes later, SWAT infiltrates.

There is an explosive ending in which Uncle Lewis throws a match into the sewer and blows Santa and his reindeer into the stratosphere.

This movie is a Christmas staple and is on many top 10 Christmas movie lists. There was some question of whether this movie pushed the PG-13 limit with the skinnydipping scene. A word of warning, the clip below does have some swearing in it as it is the "tylenol" scene. This movie will be showing 24 continuous hours on AMC.

97 Minutes. Rated PG-13. I give this movie THREE AND A QUARTER STARS.