Tag: Clark Griswold

Movie Music Monday – Christmas Vacation

The first sequel to National Lampoon’s vacation was a disappointment. National Lampoon’s European Vacation lacked a lot of what the first movie had. Honestly, it is hard to believe that a second sequel was given the green light. Thankfully, it was.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation opened in theaters on December 1, 1989. It opened at #2 at the box office (behind Back To the Future Part II). At the time of the film’s release, the film received mixed reviews. Over time, many have deemed it a Christmas classic.

The movie is based on John Hughes’ short story, “Christmas ’59”, published in National Lampoon. It tells the story of Clark Griswold’s efforts to have a good old-fashioned family Christmas. As with almost anything that happens to the Griswold’s, they take a hilarious turn for the worse. The movie was panned by critics when it was released, but over time it has reached Christmas “Classic” status.

Despite several popular songs being present in the film, no official soundtrack album was released. The musical Score for National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was composed by Angelo Badalamenti. It is the only installment of the Vacation film series not to include Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road.” In its place is a song entitled “Christmas Vacation.”

The title song and opening credits are accompanied by an animated Santa Claus having various issues. This foreshadows the insanity that is part of the movie itself. The song’s music was written by Barry Mann (of Who Put the Bomp fame). The lyrics were written by Cynthia Weil. The song is performed by Mavis Staples, the last surviving member of the Staple Singers.

I asked some friends and asked them about Christmas Vacation. Each of them agreed that they would love to hear it on the radio. I couldn’t agree more. In the latest addition of Turntable Talk, there were a few songs picked that were never played on the radio. Each of those songs could easily be in a rotation. Maybe terrestrial radio would have issues, but it would work on many Sirius XM holiday channels.

Personally, I love it. It sounds festive and happy. I love Mavis’ vocal and the “Jing a ling” background singers. It is one of two songs from the movie I want to feature.

The other song that I love from the movie dates back to 1950. It is used in the scene where Clark is staring out the kitchen window daydreaming. He is envisioning all of the fun that will happen when he puts in a swimming pool.

The song, is Mele Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. It was written in 1949 by R. Alex Anderson. Anderson recalled the inspiration for writing the song:

“Well, I’ll tell ya, a stenographer in our office, this was just before Christmas, and we are all leaving (5 o’clock), and she was next to me and she said, “Mr. Anderson, how come there’s no Hawaiian Christmas songs?” She said, “they take all the hymns and they put Hawaiian words to the hymns, but there’s no original melody.” Well, that spurred me right away – I thought, “what a good idea!” I thought this over, and over a period of a few days this came into my head, put it down on paper, and I’ve been singing it ever since.”

Bing Crosby was a frequent visitor and golf partner of Anderson. Anderson played the song for Crosby, who liked it so much that he surprised him with the 1950 recording.

Grab your sunscreen and relax …

Life’s Little Moments

I channeled my inner “Clark Griswold” this week.

I spent the weekend putting up the outdoor decorations. Believe it or not, no one was hurt in the process!

With the weather as nice as it was, I decided to get the lights up before it got too cold. I worked on the front yard first. We added two blow up penguins this year. I’m normally not one for these inflatables, but they were only $10 each! Sam loves penguins, so I couldn’t pass up the deal.

It looked cute with one on each side of the arch we got last year. You never really know what it is going to look like until it get’s dark, though. Somewhere between this picture and the next, I decided to put the extra tree on the front porch. Sam says it is too much. I’m not sure….

Sunday I decked out the side porch. Sam bought LED lights this year and they look extra bright. This is the easiest part of the house to decorate. I was going to change it up a bit, but decided to stay with what I’ve done in the past.

I guess I should have known that by doing the outdoor lights now (which is not odd), that Sam would start thinking about the inside. Monday I was home with the kids and they were kind of going crazy. Sam decided we needed a project to do, so I went downstairs and brought up the tree.

Bitsy, our kitten, isn’t even a year old yet. So we knew that the tree would be somewhere she’d want to explore. We decided that when we put the tree up, we’d leave the ornaments off of it. There are some fragile ones that we don’t want broken. Sam said we needed to compensate a bit for having no ornaments. So she bought a boat load of LED lights for the tree. Even after placing 900 lights on it, she still thinks there could be more!

We have a few other decorations in the basement, but I think we’re just gonna roll with what we have for now. I am not going to lie, sitting in the front room with all the lights off but the tree is one of those amazing moments I look forward to each year.

Christmastime is a happy time for me. I know it is early, but after all the stuff that has gone down over the last couple weeks – I like to be in a “happy place.”