MovieChat Forums > National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) Discussion > Why did he wait to decorate?

Why did he wait to decorate?

posted 7 years ago by dodgethat
11 replies | jump to latest

He's all gung-ho for Christmas right? Yet he gets his tree about a week before christmas and decorated his house with even less time before Christmas

[–] JR541 7 years ago

Every family has different traditions. A good friend of mines family waits until Christmas Eve to decorate their Christmas tree. It also seems that Clark was quite busy at work right up until the end so it's possible that he hadn't the time to decorate.

He's taking the knife out of the Cheese!
Do you think he wants some cheese?

[–] GingerVitus 7 years ago

If he was really going for the old fashioned Christmas, the tradition is putting up your tree and decorating on Christmas Eve. It's only relatively recently (like within the last 100 years) that people began decorating right around (and sometimes before) Thanksgiving.

[–] Kotter7579 7 years ago

Still, you bring up a good point about him waiting to decorate. They lived in the Chicago area, and as anyone who has lived there will tell you, you have to do outside decorations when the weather is nice. that's usually in mid to late November, because look at what Chicago just had recently where they had that big deep-freeze a bit early.

Then by the time it gets to be around dec 15-18th, it's in the 20s or low 30s, and it's not ideal for hanging anything outside.

That would make 3 Christmas' I've saved, vs. 8 that I've ruined; two were kind of a draw..

[–] dodgethat 7 years ago

but he wasn't going for a old back in the day traditional christmas. yeah he wanted a family christmas but everything he did screams modern traditions. he decorated the tree before xmas eve he had family arrive before then.

just everything is 100000x bigger with chevy. so why wait so late in the season to do it?

how could he even have the time to do it?

[–] superbrandon26 7 years ago

You do realize he got his tree before December 14th right?

[–] Cujoseph 7 years ago

Yep. My gf starts around mid November.

[–] oldsalt1961 7 years ago

Most of the plot devices, the tree, decorating, money issues, relatives staying with you, etc. are set to show the build up of holiday stress a lot of people experience.

[–] ZeoRangerFive 7 years ago

He got the tree earlier than you think, but that being said my family used to get a real tree and we would always get it maybe about a week or so before Christmas because it's dead and it will dry out, you keep in water but that only lasts so long.

Dragonzord! Mastodon! Pterodactyl! Triceratops! Saber Toothed Tiger! Tyrannosaurus!

[–] MsELLERYqueen2 7 years ago

I know! It's a project which he should have started in November, especially since he had to check all those lights. It would have been impossible to have checked all 20 000 lights in such a short period of time. (This is where suspension of disbelief comes in.)

~~~~~
Jim Hutton (1934-79) & Ellery Queen = 

[–] sdoty-54510 7 years ago

Getting the tree before Dec. 14th seemed fine.

If anything, the real question for sticklers is, How do four ordinary, very cold people, 3 of whom are women and kids, carrying no tools, get a huge tree out of the frozen ground with their bare hands and drag it hundreds of yards through the deep snow to their car? It would take them 2 weeks to do just that, if they could at all, working day and night.

[–] MsELLERYqueen2 7 years ago

I know!

Just like I can't figure out how father and son managed to check thousands of lights in one evening...

~~~~~
Jim Hutton (1934-79) & Ellery Queen = 