National Lampoon's Middlefield Vacation!

In a moment of holiday cheer tonight, I piled the kids into the car so we could watch the Middlefield Christmas tree lighting. As we approached the town green, the kids started to balk. They thought I was bringing them to the mall.  Peter dragged his heels wailing, “I hate tree lightings” followed up by, “there is no way I’m singing or sitting on Santa’s lap. I assured him that this would help us get into the holiday spirit. The organizers did a great job and they had everyone singing.  Santa must have missed his cue, because it took a second singing of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town for him to hear us all the way in the North Pole.  Then we heard the jingle as Santa arrived in style with the Mrs. on a shiny red fire truck.  The little ones gasped in excitement. Our selectmen stood on the makeshift stage flanked by some cute antler donned kids, Santa, Mrs. Claus and some community members.  One lucky child was chosen to light the tree. He put a giant wooden key into a special tree lighting box and turned. With a look like Clark Griswold, everyone stood in anticipation…."Drumroll please", 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then it happened. Our town tree, which would make Charlie Brown proud, lit…well kinda.  One strand of lights came on; all else was as black as night. On stage they were mortified, the crowd was doubled over in stitches. Peter pulls on my sleeve and says, “Mom, this is the best tree lighting ever!” This had been the year of power outages, and once again, Middlefield was dark! Wires were jiggled and in a flash the rest of the tree lit up and there was great rejoicing! Yes, it was the best tree lighting ever and now I am truly in the holiday spirit. Tonight, we were lucky enough to have a Charlie Brown Christmas meets National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. I’m not sure if life imitates art or art imitates life. Either way, I’m sure happy I was there to see it.

Thanks to Michael Hayes for a video that may be a new holiday classic!