Dept. 56 “Christmas Vacation” Movie-Themed Tablescape, Includes Retired Houses

Welcome to the 847th Tablescape Thursday! Several years ago, I created a fun Christmas Vacation Movie-themed table setting.

If you’ve been reading BNOTP, you probably remember this tablescape.

Since I last shared that table, I’ve added two more Department 56 lit houses to my Christmas Vacation collection, so I thought it would be fun to share a Christmas Vacation themed table once again. I wish I had better lighting in this room. It was rainy and dreary out when I took these photos, so I took a lot more with the lights off and the Department 56 houses lit.

Clark and Eddie are sharing a little spiked eggnog in their moose glasses before the festivities begin.

It has been so many years since I pulled these pieces out, I had forgotten that Clark’s house isn’t just lit from the inside like all the other Department 56 houses. I don’t know how I didn’t notice the bazillion lights all over the top of the house! I had taken quite a few photos for this post before it hit me and I turned those on! Arggh. Well, at least I did eventually remember! Ha!

No doubt in this aerial view, you can easily spot which of the houses is Clark and Ellen’s! Ha!

Let’s walk around the table for a better view of this fun Christmas Vacation neighborhood.

Clark is hard at work, desperately trying to get his Christmas lights to come on while his family waits impatiently in the background.

The moment of shock and awe finally arrives and the house comes to life!

Eddie is standing nearby, just being Eddie. lol

Parked just around the corner is Clark’s infamous Christmas tree, roots and all! And there’s Snot, the dog. Do you remember the crazy tree scene where the squirrel that’s been hiding in the tree, ends up inside the house? What a chase scene! So many hilarious moments in this movie!

There’s Margo and Todd’s house, complete with the tree crashing through the window, compliments of Clark.

I just came across this set of hand towels last night. They will be in my guest bath on Christmas Day when family will be here for Christmas dinner. (Towels are available here: Funny Christmas Vacation Hand Towels.)

It is shocking to see how much some of the retired houses are now going for on eBay. I saw this one being offered for over $3,000 at Replacements.com. On eBay, there are currently several houses available to purchase and the prices range from $2,750 to $5,750.00! Is that not insane?! Department 56 re-released Todd and Margo’s house, so it can be purchased for a normal price here: The Chester House. The only thing I noticed that looks different on the new version is the trees on either side of the front door are no longer ceramic but are now made to look more tree-like, like the tree that’s crashing through the window on the side of the house. I found my Margo and Todd house in A Classy Flea (back when it was still open) for just $10. It has a very tiny chip along the edge in the snow that ends up covered by faux snow when displayed. I found it during the time it was no longer available and was completely unaware that it was so sought after. I just got lucky when I stumbled across it!

At the end of the table, you’ll find one of the newer pieces I added to this collection over the last few years.

Do you remember the crazy sledding scene? Oh, my gosh, I laugh so hard every time I watch the movie and this scene comes up!

Down the other side of the table, we see another recent addition to my Christmas Vacation collection. This house is supposed to be Aunt Bethany’s house, although we never really see her home in the movie.  I guess Department 56 added it to the collection since this whole collection is so popular.

Next door to Aunt Bethany’s home is another incredibly popular, hard-to-find house from this collection, Boss Shirley’s house. By the time I found Margo and Todd’s house and realized I wanted to collect some of the Department 56 Christmas Vacation houses, Boss Shirley’s mansion was already in great demand. I could never bring myself to pay the insane prices I was seeing on eBay, so I just kept an eye out. Eventually, one popped up on eBay that was much more reasonable and I snagged it before it vanished. They are currently being offered at $760 to $2,999 on eBay. Crazy! Maybe they will re-release it at some point.

Boss Shirley had this walk of shame coming, didn’t he? Ha!

The last house in my Christmas Vacation collection is The Department Store, Belmont & Co. Even it’s going for crazy prices now on eBay—around $800 and up. I wonder if that means that it has been retired, too.

If a house/piece in this collection is released that you would like to have, it’s best to not wait. Like Home Alone, the movie is so well-loved, it has reached iconic status now, so I guess that explains the desire people have to collect and display these pieces at Christmastime. For me, it brings back so many fun moments of watching and laughing at the movie with my son, DIL and grandsons. These little houses are the physical embodiment of a lot of happy memories.

Do you remember this scene with the sales clerk inside the department store? She later appears in a fantasy Clark imagines involving the pool he hopes to have installed in his backyard. I just discovered today that Department 56 has now released the “Pool Fantasy” piece.

Let’s check out the place settings and dinnerware I brought up from the Georgia house to create this table setting.

I love, love, love these sculptural Santa plates. I think these were a find in HomeGoods one year. They don’t have a hallmark or stamp of any type on back.

I brought up the Better Homes and Garden dinnerware that was available for many years in Wally World. I don’t think they still carry it now. I couldn’t make up my mind which of the salad plate designs to use, so I decided to go with a different one at each place setting.

Fun “Ho” napkin rings add another element of whimsy to this fun table.

I hope you enjoyed this fun, silly table and that it brought back great memories of watching this movie with family and friends.

Remember that scene in the movie where Clark finally gets the lights on his home to work and it causes a blackout throughout the whole town? In the next scene, we see the electric company having to flip on the “Auxiliary Nuclear” power switch to restore electricity back to the community. Ha! Well, when it finally dawned on me that I hadn’t turned on all the lights that cover Clark’s house and I turned them on, the Red Cross Blackout Buddy Emergency Light that I have plugged in here in the dining room, turned itself off. Hahahaha! Clark’s house created so much light in the room, the Blackout Buddy turned off. So funny!

Merry Christmas to you and your wonderful friends and family! Looking forward to the beautiful table settings linked below for this week’s Tablescape Thursday!

If you are participating in Tablescape Thursday, please be sure to add your permalink below, and not your general blog address. To get your permalink, click on your post name, then copy and paste the address showing in the address bar, into the “url” box when you link up. You’ll need to include a link in your post back to the party to link up and participate. That’s so visitors to your blog will be able to find the party and the other Tablescape Thursday participants. Requiring a link back also prevents businesses and scammers from linking up to sell their products. Please, don’t add your post name/blog name ALL IN CAPS…it tends to create big spaces between the rows of links. Please do not link up table settings that were just recently shared in the last few weeks for Tablescape Thursday.