The Holiday of Festivus & the alternative Christimas
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by
I show you something fantastic and you find fault.
Published on December 11th, 2006, 7:37 pm Rift: Religion |
Although I'm sure I've heard the term Festivus, I've never given any thought to what it is, nor it's satirical origination. But tonight on the drive-home, on the Radio, they were discussing Festivus and how most people think it was from the show Seinfeld.
The first thing I thought was... hey, that's a cool idea, not that I don't like Christmas, because it's still the awesomest holiday of all, but hey aluminum pole, wrestling, and telling grievances? Sounds like the complete opposite of my normal Christmas, and quite refreshing at that.
So according to the Radio, Festivus was a city in Rome, that inspired the father of a Seinfeld writer to create his own Holiday, void of the materialistic and religious associations. Latter that writer would infuse Festivus into a Seinfeld script and bobs-your-uncle, the rest is history.
So Festivus consists of an aluminum pole instead of a Christmas tree. Sounds good to me, I spend $60.00 on our Christmas tree, when I had several fence posts sitting in the shed. I'm very tempted to still go take one of those poles to work and test my companies religious tolerances against the safety committee guidelines. Now that would be an interesting conversation:
- Safety Person: Why do you have a fence pole in your cubicle?
Me: Um... its for Festivus.
Safety: But it's not safe, someone could be climbing in the rafters and fall down on your pole and stab themselves in the forehead with it.
Me: Yeah but the crazy lady 2 cubicles over has a Christmas tree with an angel on her desk and it could spontaneously catch on fire and ignite her neighbor's Islamic berka...
Safety: Ummm... let me get HR in on this.
So besides the poles, according to the Radio, there are two other things that set Festivus apart from it's religious counterparts. First, something called "the airing of grievances", where you get to make your checklist of how family members have failed you. I like this, it's kind of the opposite of praying, perhaps the "anti-prayer":
- To Mom: Your a psychotic loon, who drinks to much and wrecked your car causing me to keep the kids away from you, which drove you to therapy, which made you borrow money from me, and made me mortgage the house.
To Dad: It sucks you had to die this year, you should really consider a more convenient time than keeling over on my wedding day.
To Cat: Can we please get you to keep your litter in the box? That's the reason it's called a litter box, and not a batting cage for feces.
The third element of Festivus appears to include wrestling the head of the household down to the floor like Hulk Hogan, and pinning them down in something called the "Feats of strength." I'm not sure how that works in a egalitarian relationship, other than you probably just choose someone you have a fighting chance to take down.
Basically it sounds like Festivus could be a good alternative for Christmas? Think about it? While Festivus sounds silly, is it really anymore different than what Christmas has become? People shooting each other over PlayStation 3's, Christmas light shows that don't require leaving the Internet. Elmos who laugh until they're are no more on the shelf, and leave kids crying because they didn't get one from Santa? What ever happened to Caroling, Christmas Hams, and celebrating being with one another? Maybe Festivus is more of what we idealize Christmas to be than Christmas actually is?
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