Good Day World!
One of my favorite holidays is approaching fast.
Festivus, a well-celebrated parody, has become a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 that serves as an alternative to participating in the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season.
(photo – Festivus Pole)
Originally a family tradition of scriptwriter Dan O'Keefe (The original holiday dinner in the O'Keefe household featured turkey or ham followed by a Pepperidge Farm cake decorated withM&M's, as described in detail in Dan O'Keefe's The Real Festivus, who worked on the American sitcom Seinfeld, the holiday entered popular culture after it was made the focus of a 1997 episode of the program.
The holiday's celebration, as it was shown on Seinfeld, includes a Festivus dinner, an unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength", and the labeling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles".
After the Festivus meal, the "Feats of Strength" are performed, involving wrestling the head of the household to the floor, with the holiday ending only if the head of the household is actually pinned.
This Seinfeld episode refers to the holiday as "a Festivus for the rest of us," referencing its non-commercial aspect. It has also been described both as a "parody holiday festival" and as a form of playful consumer resistance.
Some people, most of them inspired by the Seinfeld episode,subsequently began to celebrate the holiday with varying degrees of seriousness.
Allen Salkin's 2005 book Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us chronicles the early adoption of Festivus. Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut's book A Kosher Christmas: 'Tis the Season to Be Jewish (Rutgers University Press, 2012) references Festivus, along with hybrid holidays such as Chrismukkah.
Time for me to walk on down the road…
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