A few things make Christmas official: time off work, feeling an obligation to spend time with family, exchanging presents, and watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
Once you’ve done all of those things it is important to recuperate with friends. This year, Oreggano felt this would be best accomplished if everybody who stopped by came dressed as their favorite character from Christmas Vacation. “I’m coming as Margo in the silver sauna suit and I’m bringing blue Kool-Aid,” Live Longer advised us. The blue Kool-Aid was a tribute to the end of the world as the Mayans knew it. No wonder she lives longer – she sweats out all of her toxins and poisons others.
As friends arrived we had multiple scenes covered: Clark putting up lights, falling off the ladder, in a Santa jacket and hat, wearing a Cherokee tee, watching old movies in the attic, and with a squirrel on his back; Ellen in the kitchen in her 1980s black novelty sweater; Aunt Bethany and Uncle Lewis; Cathrine at the holiday dinner; and Eddie emptying the shitter and at the pool.
Originally, Tree had planned to dress as the bosses wife in a fur coat and nightgown, however, when I saw his underwear I made an executive decision that he would be Eddie on the diving board. His entrance was nothing short of spectacular. “Is that natural?” Sleepless, aka Cathrine, asked him. “Don’t say that, you’ll scare him away,” Ice Cream Man, aka, shitters full Eddie, advised her.
Luckily, Tree had consumed enough shots to not care. Live Longer, in the meantime, was taking lots of shots of Tree in his amazing attire. She staged him with other guests and, later in the evening, provided him wigs and lipstick, and took multiple photos of him. She also took several photos of the rest of us. I posed a few times (as Clark in the attic) and she advised me, “No, that wasn’t good. Try and do a sexy pose. Look at her (Beaner, aka, Clark with a squirrel on his back). See how she is so demure.” I advised Sleepless of this comment and she quipped, “Good. Nice to hear somebody is telling you what you always tell me.” “Better knock it off or I’ll kick you to the curb, next to your house on wheels,” I replied.
As Live Longer continued to document the evening, she also continued to fart in her sauna pants and tell us about it, “I keep farting in these sauna pants. I’ll be like, ‘smile,’ and then I fart. Nobody knows. I’ve been doing it all night. Bet these pants stink but because they’re sauna pants, the stink stays inside. Nobody knows.” “They know if you tell them,” I advised her. “Speaking of telling,” I said to That’s Not Chinese and Unfazed, “Tell us which characters you are tonight.” “We’re the lesbian neighbors – they cut us out of the film,” That’s Not Chinese. Probably true. 1989 was too early for lesbians in family films – they were only in porn back then. Or were they? Like a fart in Live Longer’s sauna pants, nobody knows.