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Happy Festivus

John Picard

John Picard

Vice Admiral
Admiral
'Seinfeld' over, but Festivus keeps giving

Long before company celebrators bench-pressed fax machines, partygoers performed competitive face-plants into ice water, or family members gathered around an aluminum pole to wield complaints at one another, the common people of ancient Rome began to act up. They were the unruly lot during official religious holidays, the ones who were "raising hell on the streets" while the "elite were putting on their robes," said journalist Allen Salkin. The adverb to describe their behavior, he said: Festivus, the Latin world for "festive."
A few thousand years later, and thanks to a "Seinfeld" writer whose father had made Festivus a quirky household tradition, a 1997 episode of the famed sitcom popularized the peculiar day.
To hear it from Frank Costanza, the character played by Jerry Stiller, the December 23 observance calls for little more than the erection of an aluminum pole, the airing of grievances and the demonstration of feats of strength -- which preferably culminate in wrestling down to the ground and pinning the head of the household.
"People want something that's nothing," said Salkin, author of "Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us," a book that chronicles the birth and flourishing of this oddly sacred day. "All the traditional holidays exclude somebody," but with this one, "everyone's in on the joke."
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Sheer brilliance :techman:
 
You beat me to it! I was just about to post this thread with that exact link!

Happy Festivus Everyone!
 
If I challenge you guys to The Feats of Strength, you're ALL goin' down...
 
It's a Festivus for the rest of us.My wife and I were howling with laughter even more so about "The Human Fund".
 
It is so awesome that an absolutely absurd character on Seinfeld actually generated a real-live holiday. :lol:

George and his parents ROCK! Still.
 
This year I was watching a local Fox station and the Simpsons were about to come on. It looked like they were going to cut to a quick weather/news update thing with the local crew but instead they all said "Happy Festivus!" and a primitive Happy Festivus graphic appeared on the screen. My familly and I just about died laughing.
 
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