A Bonkers 'Christmas Vacation'-Inspired House Was Saved By Its Neighbors
Despite the moral of the movie being about how one shouldn’t painstakingly obsess over holiday superficialities in a vain effort to capture some unattainable family ideal we’ve been fooled into believing is somehow possible, one fan of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation has turned his house into an insanely elaborate homage to the classic ‘80s comedy.
La Mirada, California resident Jeff Norton’s display includes not just tons of lights but also a cop car, cousin Eddie’s RV, and an animatronic Randy Quaid that will soon live rent-free inside your yuletide nightmares.
Norton went to absolutely insane lengths for this project, including permanently painting his house to match the house Chevy Chase pretended to live in that one time. While this isn’t the first instance of Norton’s annual project popping up in the news, this year, he decided to erect a “fake second story” to his bungalow so it would better resemble the Griswold home. The addition prompted safety concerns from city officials who insisted he take down the faux-level or else face steep fines -- somehow, they were totally cool with the rictus grin of the Quaid-bot 3000 remaining in full view of the public.
Norton refused to bow down to the Grinch-like whims of the man and kept his display intact. Thus, the city “fined Norton $100 each for the first and second week and $500 for the third and fourth weeks.” Amazingly, while Clark Griswold’s neighbors hated him with a passion, Norton’s neighbors reportedly “joined together” and pooled their money to help pay off the fines – kind of like the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life if George Bailey’s problems were exclusively decoration-based. Now the city has officially “backed down,” and the addition will be allowed to stay up until the end of the holidays! Let’s just hope that future displays don’t dip into the movie’s alarmingly racist source material for inspiration …
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Top Image: Warner Bros.
