One could easily argue that the previous two National Lampoon Vacation movies were just leading up to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. One could also easily argue that this is Chevy Chase's last good movie. After this came Nothing But Trouble (worth a damn only for the inclusion of Digital Underground) and Memoirs of An Invisible Man.
*shudder*
However, in terms of holiday movies where everything goes completely to shit, only to come out okay in the end, this is pretty much king. Once again, Rusty and Audrey are played by two totally different actors (Johnny Galecki and Juliette Lewis, no less), and Randy Quaid's Cousin Eddie pretty much steals the show. There are about a million clips we could have shared from this movie (the turkey scene, the cat chewing on the lights to the tree, "Merry Christmas! Shitter's full!"), but this pretty much sums up the movie's mix of holiday hope and frustration all at once.
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