What Is the True Story Behind Festivus?
Happy Festivus #HappyFestivus
When we say Happy Holidays, it’s meant to wish everyone the best this time of year, no matter their religion or lack thereof, or what they celebrate. There’s Christmas of course, but that’s obviously not the only holiday during the season. Festivus, on December 23rd, may not be a traditional holiday, or a real one if you want to be technical about it, but it is one that means a lot to many for a variety of reasons.
Chances are you’ve heard of Festivus, even if you’re not entirely sure what it is. The name has become part of the lexicon, and during this time of year, you can actually find Festivus products at your local Wal-Mart in the Christmas section with trees and Santa Claus decorations.
For those that don’t know, Festivus finds its roots in Seinfeld, the quintessential sitcom of the 1990s. In an age before 9/11, wars, COVID, and the obsession with social media, Seinfeld was the representation of the carefree attitude of the decade. Jerry and his friends were the most self-absorbed people you could ever meet, but they got away with it as far as TV audiences were concerned, due to the hilarious writing. Every week it seemed, a new catchphrase was tossed out by the latest episode, immediately becoming part of pop culture. “Yada yada yada”, “Serenity now!” and “No soup for you!” all became adopted into our language. Then there was Festivus.
Where Does Festivus Come From?
Festivus wasn’t a catchphrase. It wasn’t a word you said per se. It was an event, and one so absurd, yet with some deeply held truths for many, that it became endearing. As proof that Seinfeld was a classic all the way to the end (that finale is better than you remember too), the Festivus-centered episode didn’t come until the tenth entry in the series’ ninth and final season. Titled “The Strike”, because one of the plots revolves around Kramer (Michael Richards) going back to work at a bagel shop after having been on strike for years, it’s another plot that everyone still talks about. That would involve the poor, put-upon George Costanza (Jason Alexander). His life had long been a living hell partially due to the damage done by his crazy parents, Frank and Estelle (the fabulous Jerry Stiller and Estelle Harris). In this episode, George finds another way to prove it.
As usual, George gets himself in trouble due to his own selfishness. This time, when he’s annoyed at a holiday party where Dr. Tim Whatley (Bryan Cranston) is giving out cards to guests with a donation to a charity made in their name instead of buying presents, George decides he can do the same at work. It’s there he gives out cards with donations made to a fake charity called “The Human Fund.” George gets to look like a good person, and all without actually spending any money. When George’s ruse is found out, George tells his boss, Mr. Kruger (Daniel von Bargen) that he made it up because his family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and he didn’t want to be persecuted for his beliefs. “They drove my family out of Bayside, sir!” he yells anxiously.
What Happens During Festivus?
As we learn throughout the episode, Frank Costanza invented his own holiday, Festivus, because he hated the religious and commercial aspects of Christmas. A Festivus for the rest of us, he calls it. One aspect of it involves the airing of grievances, where you gather your family around and tell them all the ways they’ve disappointed you over the year. And instead of a tree, there’s a simple metal pole on a stand, because Frank finds “tinsel distracting.”
Kruger asks if George is making Festivus up, but George tells him he can prove it, so he invites the man to his parents’ home. The wacky hijinks that Seinfeld is known for then ensues, with Jerry Stiller giving one of his best performances. With his family and their friends gathered around the table, he begins to scream what he doesn’t like about them, ripping into Kruger too. There’s one more part of Festivus called the feats of strength. It is here where someone must wrestle Frank, and Festivus cannot end until he is pinned. The final seconds have Kruger volunteering George to take on his father.
It is over-the-top for sure. Even Kramer, the king of over-the-top, bails, saying, “Frank, no offense, but this holiday is a little out there.” Out there, yes, but forgettable, no. And also not so over-the-top to be unrealistic, for Festivus really happened.
Wait, Festivus Is Actually Real?
“The Strike” was written by Dan O’Keefe. When he was a child, his own father invented a holiday that was called Festivus. Why did he invent it? “At one point he said it was an anniversary for his first date with my mom, but he also said a lot of crazy s–t so who knows?” O’Keefe told the ‘Fever Dreams’ podcast for the Daily Beast last year.
O’Keefe elaborated, “It was a holiday that was unique to our family. That was ostensibly a strength. And it didn’t have a set date [and] in real life it could just happen whenever the f–k he felt like it, or was extremely hungover and wanted to jump-start his synapses. In one year, there were two for some reason; one year, there were none. You never knew when [Festivus] was coming.”
In 2013, O’Keefe told Mother Jones, “It did not have a set date… We never knew when it was going to happen until we got off the school bus and there were weird decorations around our house and weird French ’60s music playing.”
In 2018, in an interview with Uproxx, O’Keefe said, “Each Festivus had a theme, which were always depressing. One was, ‘Is there light at the end of the tunnel?’ ‘Are we too easily made glad?’ was one, I believe. My grandmother died the next year and it was ‘A Festivus for the Rest of Us,’ meaning the living and not the departed. It’s pretty goddamn weird.”
As bizarre as that all is, was there a Festivus pole in O’Keefe’s childhood? “The real holiday was too peculiar to show on television. The real symbol of the holiday was a clock inside a bag nailed to the wall and nearby a sign that says, ‘F–k Fascism.’ That doesn’t fly on network TV. Either Alec or Jeff came up with the idea of the pole and the strength-to-weight ratio.”
While it’s a little disappointing to know that there was no pole at the original Festivus (hey, there was no decorated tree at the first Christmas either), the airing of grievances very much existed. O’Keefe told Fever Dreams that the annual airing was “a very formalized setting for yelling… Yeah, growing up, myself and my two brothers were in a form of child abuse that yet wasn’t recognized as such by the state of New York, induced to perform seasonal rituals.”
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Dan O’Keefe Didn’t Want Festivus to Be a Part of Seinfeld
Understandably, as O’Keefe grew up and moved out on his own, he left the idea of Festivus behind, until one fateful day in 1997 when his brother told someone on Seinfeld about their father’s holiday. “I didn’t pitch it. I fought against it,” O’Keefe told Mother Jones. “I thought it would be embarrassing and drag the show down, but…Jerry liked it.” He added on Fever Dreams that he “tried to dissuade them as convincingly as I could.” When that didn’t work, he thought, “f–k it, if this has to be smeared onto the world, that I might as well be the hand doing the smearing.”
After the episode aired, it was out of O’Keefe’s hands. It now belonged to the world. And over the years, the world has embraced it with open arms. There’s countless merchandise, from shirts and mugs, to boardgames and earrings, celebrating the holiday, even if that goes against the anti-commercialism aspect that Frank Costanza stood for. O’Keefe himself even wrote a book in 2005 called The Real Festivus: The True Story Behind America’s Favorite Made-Up Holiday.
The holiday began to take off in a crazy way in the last decade. A few state capitol buildings have had Festivus poles on display like they were Christmas trees. Eric Cantor, the former Republican House Majority Leader, held Festivus fundraisers. Festivus has moved from pop culture silliness to a day that’s almost truly celebrated. So why is that?
Part of it is of course a way to celebrate Seinfeld. It’s about having fun and not taking life so seriously. Nostalgia, and the desire to go back to a world before the ills of the last two decades, surely plays a part. But there certainly has to be some real, honest meaning for many. The number of people who consider themselves religious has dropped a lot over the years. Black Friday and the pressure to buy the perfect present every Christmas has left many disheartened. Putting up a tree can be a hassle, especially if you don’t have kids.
A simple pole, or yelling at and wrestling with your loved ones, when done in fun, can be a release from the anxieties of the holiday. There’s no need to believe a certain way. There’s no need to have a certain amount of money. Festivus is about fun without all the added pressures that have made Christmas all about money and expectations. Festivus is indeed a holiday for the rest of us.