Christmas Vacation has ties to Its A Wonderful Life. Not only is it showing on the TV during the movie, but Frank Capras grandson was the assistant director.

For a comedy, Christmas Vacation had a large budget. The budget was set at 27,000,000 even though there werent that many special effects. For example, Ghostbusters had a budget of 30,000,000. Luckily Christmas Vacation made back their budget plus some, grossing close to 72,000,000.

Audrey is the only person from the first Christmas Vacation who appeared in Christmas Vacation 2.

You may not have caught this, but towards the end of the movie when Ellen Griswold is apologizing to Mrs. Shirley the wife of Clarks boss, she assures her that its the familys first kidnapping. While this may be true in this movie, but in the first Vacation movie, the Griswolds actually kidnap Lasky, the security guard at Wally World.

Stanley Kubrick who directed movies such as The Shining and Clockwork Orange, took note of Jeremiah Checkik. Checkik was a photographer at Vogue, but when Kubrick mentioned Checkiks name, the scripts started coming in. The one that caught Checkiks attention most was Christmas Vacation.

The funny thing about this was the fact that Jeremiah Checkik had never seen a Vacation movie before directing Christmas Vacation.

Eddies son, Rocky, doesnt say a single word in this entire movie.

Did Clarks childhood home look familiar? If so, thats because its the same house thats used in Bewitched.

Christmas Vacation is based on a short story called, Christmas 59. It was written by John Hughes in December of 1980 for National Lampoon.

John Hughes isnt all that big on sequels. Hes credited as the writer on European Vacation but only because he created the characters. He didnt know about Vegas Vacation until he read about it.

Cousin Eddie is one of Randy Quaids best known characters.

Christmas Vacation is the only sequel in the franchise to have its own sequel. Feel like you missed out on something? You didnt. It was made for TV and has a 13 approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Aunt Bethany is the voice of Betty Boop.

Uncle Louis Aunt Bethanys entrance made the ground shake literally! Right as they were filming that scene, there was a small earthquake.

Roger Ebert was not a fan of the film. He gave it two stars and said, Sequence after sequence seems to contain all the necessary material, to be well on the way toward a payoff, and then it somehow doesnt work.

Chevy Chase, Beverly DAngelo, and Juliette Lewis reunited in an Old Navy commercial in 2012.

Chevy Chase once gave Johnny Galecki the Peoples Choice Award. Other than that, they havent kept in touch.

Oftentimes Rusty was portrayed to be older than Audrey, but that wasnt the case in Christmas Vacation. She is much older than Rusty.

There were only 2 Christmas movies released in 1989. One was Christmas Vacation, and the other was, Prancer.

As if you couldnt tell from this picture, Randy Quaid is Gene Autrys third cousin. This may seem random, but when the song Here Comes Santa Claus plays when the police are raiding the Griswold home, its Gene

The movie was popular in the UK, but it never made it to theaters. It went straight to VHS.

Chevy Chase would love to see another Vacation movie happen. In 2011, there were talks of there being another movie that was based on the grandchildren.

The studio is definitely winning the sequel battle when it comes to the Vacation movies. They are already in the works with a tentative release date of 2015.

Christmas Vacation is the only movie in this series that doesnt play Lindsey Buckinghams song, Holiday Road. Instead, they play the song Christmas Vacation which was written by Barry Mann Cynthia Weil.

The cast of Christmas Vacation was downright amazing! Not only did it feature Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki who went on to make names of their own, it had Chevy Chase and Beverly DAngelo.

Cousin Eddie is based on a real person. Actor Randy Quaid used characteristics from a guy he knew in Texas when acting out this infamous character.