Art Notes

Watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation will always bring a smile to everyone’s face. Viewers love the absurdity of the circumstances into which Clark Griswold put himself. Whether it is uprooting an over-large tree for it to serve in his family’s Christmas tradition or causing a citywide power outage because he turned on his 25,000 oddly-hung twinkle lights, Clark’s incompetent but sincere efforts to provide his family the perfect holiday season are always a joy to watch.

For the Kinkade family, Christmas was really a surreal cacophony of odd events but through it all, they were happy. Their mother’s faith and warming smile always kept the real importance of holiday understood and their father’s brand of mischief could rival that of any North Pole elf and always made his boys laugh to tears. Their beloved Placerville, with all of its notable and notorious characters, was home, a place where they were loved and where they learned to love with an open heart and giving beliefs. The film, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation assuredly does not depict the perfectly curated Christmas, but it does depict a family Christmas: a holiday of faith and fun and time spent with all of those who truly matter the most. From everyone at the Thomas Kinkade Studios, we thank you for sharing the light and wish you a very merry Christmas.