What are the little things that make it Christmas for you? What has shaped your perceptions of Christmas – of what it’s supposed to be? Likely, it’s a combination of your personal experiences and the ways the holiday has been presented to you by your culture growing up – what was on tv or the radio, what commercials or movies you remember, what foods your grandmother made.   For me it’s watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story. My dad on the roof putting up the lights, getting a real Christmas tree, singing carols, the little plastic Santa that sat on our front porch all lit up from within, getting dark early, the smell of cigarettes  and taste of lemon bars and fudge at my grandma’s house where we had our annual Christmas Eve party. A well decorated shopping mall with way too many people. These things make it feel like Christmas to me.  I love the movie Christmas Vacation. I watch it every year. This year our middle child was finally old enough to watch it: A rite of passage in our family. Actually, to say I love Christmas Vacation is sort of irrelevant. Love is beside the point: It’s a part of how I experience Christmas. I saw it in the theater in December of 1989 with my family. I was 10 years old. I have seen it at least once nearly every year since then. It’s not Christmas until the lights on the Griswold’s house blind the neighbors. This movie has shaped my very perception of what Christmas is supposed to be. How could it not?