Flawed

I am 47 years old. Sadly for me, my taste in music and movies died sometime around my 23rd birthday. By then I had been exposed to enough music to know what I liked. The same is true of movies. What’s the sense in the new stuff when I already like the old stuff? Christmas movies are obvious notes of nostalgia for most of us, so it should not be a surprise to hear that I hold three christmas movies in some high personal esteem. It’s A Wonderful Life is obviously the champion in this line up, but in second place is Home Alone and third belongs to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I understand I left out Planes Trains and Automobiles, but that’s mostly because I don’t like Steve Martin. Each of these movies are important to me and to our culture, but my intensely critical nature takes no respite during movies. That’s why we have to talk about the single greatest mistake in Christmas Vacation.

John Hughes had a farm in northern Illinois. He had a condo in Williams Bay. He was known to frequent Daddy Maxwell’s. He also wrote a lot of movies that people my age and a little older hold near and dear. But all of this kind set up won’t allow me to get over his massive mistake. And the mistake is not the obvious one where the family leaves the Chicago suburbs and drives to Colorado to find their Christmas Tree. The offending scene in question is one of the more important scenes in the movie. Clark has finally sorted his lighting issue and the family is standing in the lawn. He makes his way one by one through the group, each offering their praise or criticism of his lighting job. At the end he makes his way to Cousin Eddy, and we all laugh when the misfit relative shows up unannounced, and likely uninvited. Eddy’s kids run out of the RV and join their mother and father. Then the movie unravels in an instant.

Ellen’s father leans in to Eddy’s son Rocky, (a boy maybe around 7 years of age), at least I think his name is Rocky and not Rusty in this one, and he says, without irony, “Have you got a kiss for me?” What in the name of Tom Brady is this line here for? Why does the grandfather say that line? I’ve had two grandfathers and I feel like I’d recall if either of them asked me for a kiss when we arrived for Christmas. The grandmother is standing right there. Shouldn’t that have been her line? It makes no sense and every time I watch the movie I start it with dread because I know that line is coming, and then I finish the movie with disappointment because all John Hughes had to write was:

[grandmother leans in to Rocky and says ] “Have you got a kiss for me?”

So this Christmas be sure to keep your loves ones close, and raise a glass to former Williams Bay owner and all around pop culture creating icon John Hughes. But let’s not forget that time he ruined Christmas Vacation.