Today in 1997, the sitcom Seinfeld brought forth a new holiday: Festivus!
Technically the show aired several days earlier, but December 23 was the date of Festivus in the story.
Of course, that holiday didn’t quite make it all the way through that one half-hour episode, and there was a real-life version of Festivus that’s even weirder than the one on the show.
A lot of plots in Seinfeld episodes came from the writers’ own strange experiences.
This one began with writer Dan O’Keefe.
He says he was at a party with some of his fellow Seinfeld staff when his brother started talking about how, when they were growing up in New York’s Hudson Valley, their dad had made up his own holiday, a “Festivus for the rest of us.”
Much like George Costanza’s temperamental dad Frank, O’Keefe’s father was frustrated by how commercial the classic holidays had become, so he invented one that was just for his family, complete with its own rituals and traditions.
The first Festivus likely came in the mid 1960s, commemorating the O’Keefe parents’ first date.
Original recipe Festivus had people sharing their complaints from the past year into a tape recorder, as well as family wrestling matches.
That’s why the TV version had both the Airing of Grievances and the Feats of Strength.
The actual Festivus also had poems, songs and, often, an annual theme, all written by the holiday’s inventor.
And typically the O’Keefe kids got to break some of the usual dinner table rules.
During Festivus, they could eat with their mouths open or lick their plates.
It did not have an aluminum pole in place of a Christmas tree (that was just for TV).
That pole has become a big part of the celebrations for people who celebrate the TV version of Festivus.
And there are lots of them, mostly Seinfeld fans, but also people who like to add touches of the offbeat to their Decembers.
If you want to model your celebration on the O’Keefe version, though, you’d need to have the original centerpiece that the TV show never featured: a clock in a bag, or sometimes a clock next to a bag.
Why this was the centerpiece, we may never know.
Dan O’Keefe says his parents never explained what they meant.
December 23 in Oaxaca, Mexico, is known as “Night of the Radishes.”
A bumper crop in the mid 1800s, combined with the area’s long woodcarving tradition, has led to an annual festival in which Oaxacans sculpt elaborate holiday displays out of radishes.
Judges choose the winners around 9pm, if you’re thinking of dropping by.
What is Festivus? The ‘Seinfeld’ holiday has real ‘sinister’ origins (Cincinnati Enquirer)
Mexico’s Night of the Radishes, a Quirky Christmas Tradition (How Stuff Works)
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