West Cocoa Chat

The actual line “Uncle Lewis” says from the movie, “Christmas Vacation” is, “Hey Gris, if you're not doing anything constructive, run into the living room and get my stogey.” I don’t know how constructive it was but we had 17 people in our home last night. We enjoyed a meal together and then we watched “Christmas Vacation.” The ages ranged from my son’s age, kids home from College, and the rest of us geezers.

The movie itself was worth twice the usual amount of laughs since many of us including myself and #1 son know most if not all of the funny punch lines by heart. We would laugh as we said the lines before they occurred in the movie, and then we would laugh even more when the lines were actually spoken.

I don’t know what the attraction of this movie is? Perhaps it’s the fact that although a parody, it in many ways mimics the stress many of us go through when the “family” gets together. As John Ortberg stated in his book (“Everybody’s Normal Till You Get To Know Them”) we’re all weird. An interesting paradox takes place during these holiday get togethers. In some ways many of us try to put on our “everything is cool / going O.K. with me” face while those who are older tend to lose this and instead, strip off any layers of trying to hide what they really feel and just shoot from the hip, no matter who it hurts. With this kind of mix you get an interesting thing we call stress.

But last night, 17 of us forgot about this strange mix and just enjoyed being together and laughing at lines like, Ellen, “Clark, I think it'd be best if everyone went home... before things get worse.” Clark: “WORSE? How could things get any worse? Take a look around here, Ellen. We're at the threshold of hell.”

I certainly hope you’re not on the “threshold of hell” during this time of year and if you are, watch the movie! Merry Christmas my brothers and sisters.