High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Christmas Vacation is a 1989 Christmas comedy film directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik. It is the third installment in National Lampoon`s Vacation film series, and was written by John Hughes, based on his short story in National Lampoon Magazine, Christmas ‘59. The title song was written for the movie by the husband-wife songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and was performed by Mavis Staples of The Staple Singers fame.