As a child, Christmas always guaranteed a few things. You were going to get presents. There was going to be a lot of candy and cookies and other sweets. Christmas Eve was going to be the most difficult sleep of the year.
It also meant family descending on the house for a week or so. In my family, the grandparents always showed up (I was the first to lose my room, hands down), followed by an aunt and even an uncle. It was a house full, for sure, as there were already five of us there to begin with. Naturally, there is stress involved with the holidays but you don’t realize just how much until you reach adulthood.
One of my favorite films of all time is “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”. I love classic Chevy Chase and he is at the top of his game in this one. It was written by John Hughes, and if you don’t know who John Hughes is please wander into traffic. These are two of my favorite clips. The first is Clark having his famous meltdown at the end of the movie and the second is Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie, drinking a beer and emptying a chemical toilet into Clark’s sewer, a plot point that pays off later.
WARNING: Naughty language ahead!
