We report the results of detailed observations of the Vela pulsar glitch which occurred on 24 December 1988. The period decrease occurred without warning and took place in much less than 2 minutes. The recovery, which commenced immediately, requires a complex function to model it, including three exponential terms and a damped sinusoid. An offset between data at two observing frequencies commenced at about the glitch epoch and continued for about 40 days; this is consistent with a small increase in dispersion measure or a change in the pulsar magnetic field configuration.