It all started with the pole.
Or, rather, the issue of getting a tree. Every year I get a Christmas tree with my dad when I get home from school, but this year was later than most. As my dad and I drove home, my mom jokingly proposed a solution: what if we celebrated Festivus instead?
Festivus is a somewhat-fictional holiday from the iconic "Seinfeld" episode, taking place on December 23rd. In the episode, Festivus is created by Frank Costanza after an unpleasant shopping experience as an alternative to the stress of Christmas. Rather than gathering around a Christmas tree, Festivus decorations include a single aluminum pole without decoration (explained by Frank as, “I find tinsel distracting”). There is a Festivus feast (meatloaf) and during the meal, the Airing of Grievances occurs – an event wherein you let your family know all of the ways they have disappointed you in the past year. Finally, there is the Feats of Strength event, wherein the head of household selects another person to wrestle. Festivus does not end until that person successfully pins the head of household.
After watching the episode and waffling for a little, we all agreed to give Festivus a chance. Our first task was procuring a pole, which ended up being easy, because we already had one. Defecting from standard Festivus practice, we decided to jazz it up a little with lights and some ornaments, and by the end, our Festivus pole was actually pretty festive looking. We also decided to loosen our interpretation of the Feats of Strength, for a number of reasons, largely because we couldn’t decide who the head of household was. Rather than wrestling, we elected to have five Feats of Strength to celebrate, which were organized by my brother. Leading up to the actual day of Festivus, we played a comical amount of board games and kept a tally of total wins as a precursor to the Feats of Strength.
On the night of Festivus, we had a traditional feast of meatloaf before beginning our Airing of Grievances, which was accessorized by eclairs, which my mom said were a homage to a different "Seinfeld" episode. We kept the grievances (mostly) not personal to family members and instead griped about greater issues, like people who cut in bus lines or how the pizza place in the mall was replaced by a pancake house.
After our grievances were aired, we began the Feats of Strength. My brother had organized the five Feats into the categories of Speed, Athletics, Endurance, Creativity, and Intelligence, each meant to address a different skill set so it would be a more well-rounded challenge. For our first Feat of Speed, we held a speed-eating contest: we hung two donuts from the ceiling for each contestant, and we were challenged to eat both of them without our hands as fast as we could. This proved to be more difficult than expected, mostly because two donuts is a lot to try and eat in less than four minutes. My dad and brother were the forerunners of this competition, with my dad taking the crown with a total time of 2 minutes and 17 seconds.
The next night we tested our athletics with a game of Eggnog Pong, which is exactly like beer pong in all ways but one (eggnog). My brother won, having secured wins against me and my mom in the championship round. Our Feat of Endurance was watching “try not to laugh” video compilations on YouTube, which came down to my mom and brother and ended up needing to extend into the next day for a tiebreaker, which my mom won. Our Feat of Creativity was a marble run building contest, wherein we were challenged to build the longest running marble run in only 15 minutes, another surprisingly difficult contest that ended with my mother’s victory again, giving her the lead overall.
Our final Feat of Strength, in the intelligence category, is tonight. As unconventional as this year’s holiday season was, my family’s creative approach and overall engagement with Festivus made this year one of the best and hopefully began a slew of new traditions for all of us.
