I’ve Watched ‘Christmas Vacation’ at Least 25 Times and Just Noticed the Most Epic Dish

I set out to recreate it at home.

One of the must-watch holiday movies in my home each holiday season is "National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation," the hilarious tale of the Griswold family’s attempt to have a good, old-fashioned Christmas celebration, which stars icons like Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Juliette Lewis, and even Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The movie debuted in 1989, which means I’ve watched it well over 25 times. Still, while viewing the film with my husband this year, I saw a dish on the Griswold's holiday table that made me say, “Are you serious, Clark?”

During the film’s Christmas Eve dinner scene, a bizarre holiday side dish sits on the table in front of Beverly D’Angelo. And no, it’s not Aunt Bethany’s Jell-O made with cat food. What caught my eye this year was a Christmas tree made out of asparagus, decorated with items you’d normally see on a relish tray like pimento-stuffed olives, pearl onions, and tiny red peppers.

“Wait, pause it,” I said to my husband when the tree caught my eye. “What is that thing?”

What Is the Tall Green Tower on the Table in 'National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation'?

As it turns out, I’m not the only one asking. There’s an entire Reddit thread dedicated to the “tall, green thing” on the table, and Jeff Sheldon, who blogs at YesterYear Retro, wrote an in-depth post dedicated to the dish in 2022. “It was a giant, green tower of something right in front of Ellen Griswold,” Sheldon wrote in the blog post. “I paused the movie, and [my wife and I] stared at the screen for a while until she finally said, ‘It looks like a Christmas tree made out of vegetables.’ She wasn't wrong; it was an asparagus tree.”

Since Ellen Griswold is one of my favorite holiday movie characters, I knew I had to try to make this iconic dish myself. After all, I can’t imagine any of the other guests at the Griswold Christmas Eve dinner were responsible for this “beaut” of a seasonal dish.

I decided I wouldn’t cook the asparagus I used for the actual tree, since I worried it would become too soggy to shape into a stand-up Christmas tree form. Instead, I fashioned a Christmas tree out of raw asparagus, then cooked the rest along with lots of other roasted vegetables and sliced chicken sausage. Here’s exactly how I made my version.

How to Make the Griswold's Asparagus Christmas Tree

I started with two 10-ounce bags of asparagus spears (two bunches would also work) along with a bag of frozen, peeled pearl onions, green olives stuffed with pimentos, and a few macho peppers (tiny red peppers I clipped off a plant purchased on a recent shopping trip to Trader Joe’s). The Griswold asparagus tree also had a red tomato as a star-like tree topper, but I wondered if a cherry or grape tomato would be too small for this task, so I purchased a small Roma tomato and used a trimmed end section of the fruit as my topper.

I gathered a good-sized bunch of asparagus to use as the base section of my tree, trimming the ends off each stalk to make sure each was the same height. Using butcher’s twine, I tied the stalks together and arranged the bundle standing up on a platter. Next, I gathered, trimmed, and tied a second bunch of asparagus and nestled it into the center of the first to give my Christmas tree a second layer. After tying both together with an additional piece of twine, I used toothpicks to attach peppers, olives, and pearl onions (which I pre-boiled for about five minutes) to the tree. Once it was standing in its full holiday glory, I roasted the remaining asparagus along with a few other vegetables like red potatoes, carrots, and green beans alongside sliced chicken sausage. I surrounded my asparagus tree with the roasted veggies and served it on a large holiday platter.

The creative addition to my dinner table amused my entire family and I was glad I tossed a bit of asparagus into my roasted vegetables to tie everything together. Serving such a fun and merry meal to my family definitely made us feel like we were having the “hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap danced with Danny Kaye,” and I would absolutely bring out the asparagus holiday tree again to entertain my guests.

Read the original article on All Recipes.