We are playing Christmas Vacation in the Community Band that I am a part of, and I’m really feeling the Christmas spirit early this year. Not sure why, but sometime you just “need a little Christmas. Right this very minute.”

I decided that I needed to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation to see where the theme song connects — and it’s right at the very beginning, running during the credits.

I had forgotten the undercurrents of this movie; the nostalgia Grant feels about his family Christmases, the difficult relationships with his parents, siblings, and in-laws are so very real. Maybe you need to be a grown-up to really get this movie.

The next door neighbors, with a young Julia Louis-Dreyfus, are perfect foils for Chevy Chase’s Christmas idyll.

I’m not sure why I need a little Christmas, but it’s not too late to start watching holiday movies. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, there’s a universality in the themes.

After three years of silence, I’m feeling the need to share my thoughts. I remember when my father discovered email as a vehicle for delivering his treatises on his theology. Now that I’m at the age that my father was when he discovered social media, there’s a certain connection that I wish I could share with my dad. I might need to talk about theology, but it’s more likely that I’m going to journal my thoughts. And musical theatre and movies, which are the song tracks of my life.

Hopefully you’ll join me.