Happy Festivus!

As avid fans of the show Seinfeld, my family often likes to re-live and quote funny moments from the show on a regular basis. All of us – my mother, father, aunts, uncles, and I – range from being fairly familiar with most episodes to having memorized just about every episode. One of our favorite episodes is without a doubt “The Strike,” which features George’s holiday history and how his father invented a new holiday: Festivus.

My family, being as crazy as we are, thought it would be fun to have our own Festivus one year. It wasn’t on December 23^rd like the one in Seinfeld, but rather on a summer day years ago. We did the traditional “Airing of Grievances” and the “Feats of Strength,” but we didn’t have the aluminum pole or dinner. As ridiculous as it sounds, it was a lot of fun. The grievances we aired were about non-family members to avoid any family squabble and the feat of strength was to see who could run fastest up the street.

I think it would be awesome if we could make this an annual tradition and it would be even more awesome if this holiday was practiced by more families. In fact, I did find a Wikipedia site for Festivus that says it’s an actual holiday that some people do celebrate, which I had no prior knowledge of before writing this blog. I had always thought it was just a piece of Seinfeld silliness. Whatever it is – real holiday or part of pop culture infamy – we should all embrace Festivus and introduce it into our families (if they’re not already familiar with it). It has the potential to become another tradition that will be an opportunity for more laughs and more memories. So, whether you celebrate it on the 23^rd of December or another day, Happy Festivus for the rest of us!