On Christmas Eve this year, you may be stuck choosing between National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Home Alone as the 25-ish-year-old holiday classic to enjoy with the entire family. As it turns out, Home Alone’s director Chris Columbus once faced the same choice—and Chevy Chase made it easy for him to decide.

In a Chicago magazine oral history of Home Alone that’s far, far more entertaining than you might expect, Columbus reveals that, before their Home Alone collaboration, writer and producer John Hughes had asked him to direct Christmas Vacation. Columbus met with star Chevy Chase, and well, that’s where history begins:

“To be completely honest, Chevy treated me like dirt. But I stuck it out and even went as far as to shoot second unit. Some of my shots of downtown Chicago are still in the movie. Then I had another meeting with Chevy, and it was worse. I called John and said, ‘There’s no way I can do this movie. I know I need to work, but I can’t do it with this guy.‘ ”

Hughes, earning his reputation as a nice guy, not only supported Columbus’s choice, but two weeks later sent him the script for Home Alone. It was only the third film Columbus ever directed, and remains his second-highest-grossing film, behind only the first Harry Potter movie. (That’s right: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets made less, in 2002 dollars, than Home Alone did in 1990. That movie was gigantic.)

Other highlights from the oral history: an unused high school was repurposed as a soundstage (“Everyone would play roller hockey in the hallways”), Catherine O’Hara and John Candy improvised far, far more than could be used in their scenes together (“You’re supposed to be looking for your kid, and you’re just having a good time with these guys in a truck,” O’Hara remembers Columbus telling her), and the elaborate pratfalls done by the stuntmen playing the robbers Harry and Marv changed the way stunts were done in the entire industry (“Everybody would call for an interview and say, ‘We want that Home Alone fall.’”) Cue up the music below, read the oral history, and try not to let it get to you that Home Alone has somehow turned 25.