aaaah, the holidays….

You might remember my post from two years ago (has it been THAT long?) about my favorite Christmas movie, Christmas Vacation.

Last night we fired up the DVD and watched it again for the gazillionth time.

It just never gets old.

The squirrel in the tree. The fried cat. The lime jello mold with cat food accents. The part when Clark has a ladder mishap while installing the “exterior illumination”.

Classic.

It brings to mind a magical moment I had as a kid.

Years ago, when we lived in the infamous “blue house” my Dad did a Clark Griswold of his own. One year he decided to climb up on the roof in the middle of the night and do his best interpretation of Santa and his “eight tiny reindeer”.

“And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.”

My Mom woke up my brother and me to the sounds of various gardening equipment tapping on the roof, and my Dad’s oh so accurate depiction of Santa getting ready to come down the chimney.

Let me tell you, as a kid it sounded JUST LIKE Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, & Blitzen.

Well, until the HO HO HO’s turned into quite a clamor…

you see, my Dad (sorry, SANTA) was just about falling off the roof.

I don’t remember my Mom being concerned, but I do remember her giggling. My Dad didn’t know it then, but he was channeling Clark Griswold for sure. In fact, I bet if I looked out the wrong window, he would have been hanging upside down, tethered to the roof only by a stubborn gutter and a heavy-duty string of lights wrapped around his ankle.

We had dozens of stories like that when I was a kid. I am sure that the Griswolds were loosely based on my family.

Clark as my Dad, Ellen as my Mom, Rusty as my little brother, and me, Audrey. Come to think of it, we even looked like them.