Holiday movies are a huge part of the Christmas season around here. One of our favorites, one that gets watched every single year, is ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.’  I don’t think I need to elaborate too much about Christmas Vacation; you’ve all see it. Please tell me you’ve seen it. If you haven’t, do it now. We’ll wait. Christmas Vacation is the third film in the ‘Vacation’ series.  It’s the story of Clark Griswold’s attempt at creating “The Perfect Family Christmas.” It’s the sort of thing anyone with a family can relate to. I’d call the movie Christmas Ephemera, but it’s achieved classic status and is enjoyed by millions every year.

What I never knew, until quite recently, was that the film was based on a short story. More about that in a bit.

The John Hughes Holiday Movie Trifecta

Released in 1989, ‘Christmas Vacation’ is the middle film in writer/director John Hughes‘ trilogy of nearly-perfect holiday movies. Beginning with ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles‘ in 1987 (the greatest Thanksgiving movie) and concluding in 1990 with the mega-hit ‘Home Alone,’ John Hughes wrote and/or directed three movies that perfectly encapsulate the modern American holiday season. (You can also add ‘Home Alone 2‘ which is basically the first film set in New York.) Some consider Hughes’ ‘Dutch‘ to be the John Hughes Thanksgiving flick. It’s good. It’s not great.

The Birth of a Christmas Classic

Before “Christmas Vacation,” before the John Hughes teen angst classics like Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, etc….Prior to becoming a successful filmmaker, John Hughes was a writer at th satirical magazine The Havard Lampoon. (Harvard Lampoon morphed into the National Lampoon when the publication went, well, national.)

While at the Lampoon, Hughes wrote a short story in 1980 called “Christmas ’59.”  The story is loosely-based on his own childhood memories of a family Christmas in 1959.  (OH. I should probably mention that it follows the publication in 1979 of another short story called “Vacation ’58” which formed the basis for National Lampoon’s Vacation. (Another classic 80’s comedy. John Hughes was a talented dude.)

Thanks to the archives of the Mighty Internet, we can all look back and read for ourselves John Hughes’ Christmas ’59 and see where it all began…..click on the image below or click HERE to read the story. Enjoy.

John Hughes passed away in 2009.

There were sixteen relatives in four bedrooms…

Christmas ’59 by John Hughes

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