For many people, nothing says Christmas quite like watching one man's slow descent into a ball of self-pity surrounded by his semi-estranged loved ones. To celebrate the cinematic story of the Griswold family, retailers are selling this National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation porcelain village that depicts some of your favorite scenes.
Prices for the pieces range from $170 for the Griswold home (11 inches by seven inches), down to $22.50 for a 3-inch tall Cousin Eddie. Like most "Dickensian" style Christmas villages, this one is crafted out of porcelain and made to be placed on felt or a faux snow-covered mantle. This one depicts "the silent majesty of a winter's morn, the clean, cool chill of the holiday air, and an *sshole in his bathrobe, emptying a chemical toilet" into Clark Griswold's sewer, because the sh*tter was, in fact, full.
Growing up, many of us watched Christmas Vacation every year as it reran on cable. It was the first film that made me truly terrified of log trucks. (Final Destination 2 cemented the fear, but I'm not buying any of their ceramic villages.) The film is a classic disaster movie, with the added benefit of Santa and jingle bells. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, and much beleaguered Clark Griswold pays the price over and over. Though, maybe not so much as the cat.
One of the most iconic scenes of the film is in miniature in this set. It is the scene where Clark is standing with his family, lighting up their huge, suburban home after he's placed more lights on his house than what would be used to light the runways at LaGuardia airport. I mean, with "250 strands of lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand, for a grand total of 25,000 Italian twinkle lights" is, arguably, a ton of holiday sparkle and merriment. And this National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation village house lights up. With a whole lot less electricity needed. I mean, it's not the 1980s, anymore. We have LED lights now.
The detail on these types of villages is the draw, and this one has it in spades. Whether it's the Santa Clark that is famous for being on the movie posters and VHS boxes, or Cousin Eddie's RV, this is potentially the most fun Christmas village I've ever seen, and to be honest, I'm a collector of weird Christmas villages. There are a ton of options on Amazon for this National Lampoon set, which means that it's buildable, which is the whole point of these villages. Because they're spendy, you buy a new piece each year.
You could plan your whole holiday decor around the Griswold family theme. The actual visuals of the film are pretty great. The tree is total 1980s glory with tinsel and brightly colored lights in different bulb sizes, strands of popcorn, and a wild array of ornaments. The dinner table is actually quite gorgeous with cut crystal stemware (to help you choke down the turkey), red and white flowers, and tall, skinny Christmas tree centerpieces. It could work really well.
But it's also great just to have on its own, or to throw into your already thriving Christmas village collection. How fun would it be to have Clark Griswold mixed in with figure skaters and carolers? The options are really vast, and since the detail is so beautiful, no one is going to mistake these pieces for anything other than exactly what they are, and that is probably the coolest thing about it.
