Clark W. Griswold never won any awards for his epic display of Christmas lights, which is a shame, because he really went all out while dealing with the stress of waiting for a Christmas bonus. His display included Santa, a sleigh and 8 slightly damaged reindeer in the yard, not to mention 250 strands of lights. (100 individual bulbs per strand, for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights.)
But there’s still hope for this couple in Austin, Texas who used Clark’s mishaps putting up his lights in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to enhance their own simple display of mostly boring white lights. They went to a thrift store to find the perfect 1980’s winter-in-Chicago ensemble and put it on a dummy which hung from their gutters with such realism that it freaked out a passerby. That man didn’t see a tribute, but a person in trouble and tried to save the dummy’s life. The rescue attempt was caught by the home’s security camera.
The man who tried to save “Clark’s” life is Alfred Norwood, Jr., a retired vet. The family who lives at the house was able to contact Norwood and they gave him a gift card for trying to help. They also added a sign to the display in case anyone else cared enough to try and help. Maybe next time they should just stick to the less worrisome Cousin Eddie tribute.