Posted on 12/23/2004 5:48:43 AM PST by KidGlock
Thursday, December 23, 2004
'A Festivus for the rest of us' starts catching on
By ALLEN SALKIN THE NEW YORK TIMES
Gather around the Festivus pole and listen to a tale about a real holiday made fictional and then real again, a tale that touches on philosophy, King Lear, the pool at the Chateau Marmont hotel, a paper bag with a clock inside and, oh yes, a television show about nothing.
The first surprise is that all over the country, many real people are holding parties celebrating Festivus, a holiday most believe was invented on an episode of "Seinfeld" first broadcast the week before Christmas in 1997.
"More and more people are familiar with what Festivus is, and it's growing," said Jennifer Galdes, a Chicago restaurant publicist who organized her first Festivus party three years ago. "This year many more people, when they got the invite, responded with, 'Will there be an airing of the grievances and feats of strength?' "
Those two rituals -- accusing others of being a disappointment and wrestling -- are traditions of Festivus as explained on the show by the character Frank Costanza. On that episode he tells Kramer that he invented the holiday when his children were young and he found himself in a department store tug of war with another Christmas shopper over a doll. "I realized there had to be a better way," Frank says.
So he coined the slogan "A Festivus for the rest of us" and formulated the other rules: The holiday occurs today, features a bare aluminum pole instead of a tree and does not end until the head of the family is wrestled to the floor and pinned.
The actual inventor of Festivus is Dan O'Keefe, 76, whose son Daniel, a writer on "Seinfeld," appropriated a family tradition for the episode. The elder O'Keefe was stunned to hear that the holiday, which he minted in 1966, is catching on. "Have we accidentally invented a cult?" he wondered.
Maybe.
To postulate grandly, the rise of Festivus, a bare-bones affair in which even tinsel is forbidden, may mean that Americans are fed up with the commercialism of the December holidays and are yearning for something simpler. Or it could be that Festivus is the perfect secular theme for an all-inclusive December gathering (even better than Chrismukkah, popularized by the television show "The O.C."). Or maybe, postulating smally, it's just irresistibly silly.
Interpretations of the holiday's rules differ among Festivus fundamentalists. Take the pole. On the show Frank Costanza says it must be aluminum and "it requires no decoration." But he does not specify what should hold it up nor its exact height.
Krista Soroka, 33, the host of an annual Festivus party in Tampa Bay, Fla., sank her 5-footer into a green plastic pot filled with sand this year. "It's just an aluminum pole," she said, "like Frank says."
Aaron Roberts, 28, a zoology graduate student in Oxford, Ohio, unscrewed a post from a set of metal shelves and sank it through the top of a cardboard box with weights inside.
Mike Osiecki, 26, a financial analyst in Atlanta, scheduled his Festivus gathering for friends and colleagues for tomorrow. He said his pole, which he bought for $10 at Home Depot, is suspended by fishing line on his porch, so "people can stare at it or dance around it if they want to."
In Chicago, Galdes anchored her 6-and-a-half-footer in a Christmas tree stand. "This year I am not having a tree," she said.
Scott McLemee, a writer, and his wife, Rita Tehan, had no pole at all at their party in the Dupont Circle neighborhood in Washington. They are two of the Festivus faithful who held their parties early in December before friends headed home for more traditional affairs.
Dan O'Keefe and his son bless the variations. The original Festivus was constantly in flux.
"It was entirely more peculiar than on the show," the younger O'Keefe said from the set of the sitcom "Listen Up," where he is now a writer. There was never a pole, but there were airings of grievances into a tape recorder and wrestling matches between Daniel and his two brothers, among other rites.
"There was a clock in a bag," said O'Keefe, 36, adding that he does not know what it symbolized.
"Most of the Festivi had a theme," he said. "One was, 'Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?' Another was, 'Too easily made glad?' "
His father, a former editor at Reader's Digest, said the first Festivus took place in February 1966, before any of his children were born, as a celebration of the anniversary of his first date with his wife, Deborah. The word "Festivus" just popped into his head, he said from his home in Chappaqua, N.Y.
The holiday evolved during the 1970s, when the elder O'Keefe began doing research for his book "Stolen Lightning" (Vintage 1983), a work of sociology that explores the ways people use cults, astrology and the paranormal as a defense against social pressures.
Festivus, with classic rituals such as familial gatherings, totemic-but-mysterious objects and respect for ancestors, slouched forth from this milieu. "In the background was Durkheim's 'Elementary Forms of Religious Life,' " O'Keefe recalled, "saying that religion is the unconscious projection of the group. And then the U.S. philosopher Josiah Royce: Religion is the worship of the beloved community."
If O'Keefe is the real father of Festivus, Jerry Stiller, the actor who played Frank Costanza, George Costanza's father, is its Santa Claus.
"I'll take that mantle," Stiller said in an interview from poolside at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, where he was awaiting the premiere of "Meet the Fockers," a new film featuring his real son, Ben Stiller. "I'll wear my crown."
Stiller, 77, has his own interpretation of the Festivus rituals as portrayed on the "Seinfeld" episode, especially the feats of strength, which end with a wrestling match between him and George.
"It was another kind of way with dealing with something else that was going on at the time: the rebelliousness of the son against the father and the father trying to prove he was still stronger than the son," he said. "It was like King Lear." (In this case, though, the old man wins.)
Infused as Festivus is with so much potential meaning, it is not far-fetched to imagine it as a permanent part of the American holiday firmament, said Anthony F. Aveni, a professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate and the author of "The Book of the Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays" (Oxford University Press, 2002). After all, Halloween used to be an obscure festival observed by few, Kwanzaa was invented by an academic in California in the 1960s, and Hanukkah has been reinvented in modern times to include gift-giving. "Even Christmas comes out of a pagan holiday that happened around the solstice," Aveni said.
The holiday does seem to be evolving.
The Festivus party to be given in Austin, Texas, on Christmas Eve eve by Katherine Willis, an actress, and her husband is to include a backyard game of "pitching washers."
"There's basically a hole in the ground," she said. "You try to throw the washers in the hole, and apparently the more you drink the better you get at it."
A Web site she has set up, www.kwillis.com/festivus.html, provides downloads of a feats of strength challenge card, a list of grievances form and Festivus greeting cards, including one that reads, in a Hallmark-like typeface, "You're a disappointment! Happy Festivus!" Another Web site, www.crazygrrl.com, offers Festivus e-mail cards.
Soroka, in Tampa Bay, who has guests write their grievances in a ledger so she can show it at parties all year long, has added karaoke this year.
Some things just grow. "Last year," said Galdes of Chicago, "there was break dancing. I don't know how that happened."
Wow, that's quite a thrashing.
I have a sense that Festivus was created precisely for folks like you.
BibChr, et al, are on this thread specifically to "pin us to the ground", so I think we can add Feats Of Strength as well.
"I HAVE A REAL PROBLEM WITH SOME OF YOU PEOPLE!"
Agree, Dan!!! It's heartbreaking to watch the crumbling all around us and then read, hear and see the attitude of those who see no harm. {{{sigh}}}
Kwanzaa for Honkies...
"BibChr, et al, are on this thread specifically to "pin us to the ground", so I think we can add Feats Of Strength as well."
You're right. Regardless, they will never take my Festivus Pole until they pry it from my cold, dead, fingers.
I'm really meaning to thrash the sham of Festivus. Have I been personal in my remarks? Unlike the unresponsive responses I've gotten, I don't think I have.
I don't know you; you may be a great guy. You may be a great gal!
But Festivus is a stupid idea, and that it has any traction is, as I have explained, a sad commentary on our culture.
Dan
Which is exactly why the Seinfeld/Festivus episode was so funny.
Humor is a wonderful thing.
You should try it sometime.
No, the spirit of Festivus is that the character of Frank Costanza was psychotic. They could have tried it with 100 other actors and it wouldn't have worked. It is a JOKE that has nothing to do with Christmas. It's like discussing apples and car batteries.
"Kruger, your company sucks!"
Yeah but the sitcom was lame and so is festivus. Of course many think "Steinfeld" is the funniest thing going... but for me and others it's lame and dumb. Unfunny.
The first 30 minutes of "Collateral Damage" had me laughing. The Dirty Harry movies had a lot laughs. Not Steinfeld.
Koko, is that you?
Different strokes for different folks.
Why come into a thread and treat the participants like they're blasphemous heathens because they like (or don't) a particular comedy act.
It's silly.
Yeah, I know it was odd that he had never watched it before. I'm going to have to ask him about Festivus.
Serenity now. Insanity later.
"You're not giving away our Water-Pik!"
SD
However it started, that isn't what it's becoming. Do you really not see that our self-uprooted culture is on a constant, restless lookout for Christ-substitutes?
Illustration: at my work — which is a GREAT place to work — my boss — who I LOVE; he's a truly great boss — called our Christmas party a "Festivus party." It was meant humorously; but it was also a conscious choice, as a substitute for "Christmas," so as not to *offend* anyone.
So it's not just a joke on a TV show aymore. Isn't that the point of this article, too?
Dan
Have you seen the Festivus episode?
Actually, I am often complimented for my sense of humor.
I watched the Seinfeld show for years and laughed long and hard. George and Mr. Peterman were the best, IMHO.
Now, let me ask you if you didn't think that the finale of that show was sobering and not just a little bit sickening?
Sometimes when I hear really bad disco music, I get the same feeling...like I went along down the primrose path.
You know...from reading alot of your posts before this thread, I'd consider you to be a well informed, educated, and good hearted person with good intentions.
But seriesly...you really must lighten up. Alienating people over silly things, I dare say, goes against the teachings of Christ...and the spirit of Christmas IMHO. Some things are permissible for others, while they may not be permissible for you. Drinking alcohol is permissible for me...but not for others. Dressing my kids up for Halloween, letting my kids read the Harry Potter books, all things are permissible for me, but not for others. Notwithstanding, I am no more Christian or no less a sinner than you or I.
In any rate...
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Happy Festivus, darling!
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