{"id":27263,"date":"2019-11-20T13:46:15","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T18:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=27263"},"modified":"2019-11-18T15:19:12","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T20:19:12","slug":"claude-column-whats-the-deal-with-festivus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/entertainment\/2019\/11\/20\/claude-column-whats-the-deal-with-festivus\/","title":{"rendered":"Claude Column: What&#8217;s the Deal with Festivus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">As you might\u2019ve read on page nine, commercialism is more prevalent now than ever before around the holidays. The endless ads for Christmas themed mochas, people pulling out their hair trying to find that perfect gift and tolerating your weird relatives and their politically-themed Christmas sweaters they bought just to annoy you can be mind-numbingly frustrating.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now most people find joy in the chaos of Christmas, deeming it a holiday tradition so to speak. But what about the rest of us? But what about those people who desire to escape from all this commercialized nonsense?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With all of this thrown in your face like a snowball, the holidays can sometimes be overwhelming and even a bit stressful. So on Dec. 23, people all over the world often celebrate what began as a throwaway joke from a sitcom but evolved into an alternative to the mainstream holidays. This holiday is Festivus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Related Articles:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Claude's Column: Is Comedy Dying (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/entertainment\/2019\/03\/13\/claudes-column-is-comedy-dying\/\" target=\"_blank\">Claude&#8217;s Column: Is Comedy Dying<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/u-s-news\/2019\/11\/10\/claudes-column\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Claude's Column: The History and Celebration of Veterans Day (opens in a new tab)\">Claude&#8217;s Column: The History and Celebration of Veterans Day<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since Dec. 18 of 1997, people have gathered around undecorated aluminum poles and aired their grievances towards one another in the spirit of Festivus. Some might ask why and or how this rather obscure holiday came to be. Well, buckle in buckaroo, cause it\u2019s kind of a long story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first Festivus actually took place in February 1966 and was the brainchild of <a href=\"http:\/\/festivusweb.com\/origin-of-festivus.php\">Daniel O&#8217;Keefe<\/a>, father of Seinfeld writer Dan O\u2019Keefe. Daniel Sr. invented Festivus as a way to celebrate a holiday not linked to religion or consumerism. Gerald Stiller (aka Frank Costanza) referred to it as \u201ca Festivus for the rest of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;Over the years, Festivus became a staple of the O\u2019Keefe family. Inspired by \u201cKrapp\u2019s Last Tape,\u201d Daniel Sr. recorded the Festivus proceedings, during which family members discussed what bothered them. From these conversations, the traditional Festivus airing of grievances was born, where each family member tells the family all the ways they\u2019ve disappointed them in the past year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another Festivus tradition includes the feats of strength. Originally, these were wrestling matches contested between Dan O\u2019Keefe and his brothers. Over time however, the tradition has transformed into a challenge by the patriarch of the family who chooses a family member to fight in a wrestling match.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For years, these strange traditions remained hidden in the O\u2019Keefe household. However, In 1997, Dan O\u2019Keefe took his father\u2019s family holiday and with the help of Jerry Seinfeld, transformed it into a cultural phenomenon.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Dec. 18 of that year, the Seinfeld episode \u201cThe Strike\u201d aired on TV. During this episode George Costanza (Jason Alexander) is approached by his father Frank Costanza (Gerald Stiller) who is encouraged by Kramer (Michael Richards) to celebrate Festivus again, much to George\u2019s dismay. This episode introduced the tradition of an aluminum pole instead of a Christmas tree, a tradition that wasn\u2019t practiced in the O\u2019Keefe Festivus.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rKdnqjnegEs?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><figcaption>Thanks to Seinfeld, Festivus has become a cult holiday among Seinfeld fans. (TBS\/YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Years later, Festivus is still celebrated by Seinfeld fans and casual viewers alike. So whether you\u2019re a Seinfeld fan or not, Festivus is a wonderful time of the year to spend time with loved ones and work out your problems together and maybe even see who\u2019s the strongest. So however you decide to spend the holidays, may your Festivus be the bestivus.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Samuel J. Claude<\/strong><br>Managing Editor<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you might\u2019ve read on page nine, commercialism is more prevalent now than ever before around the holidays. The endless ads for Christmas themed mochas, people pulling out their hair trying to find that perfect gift and tolerating your weird relatives and their politically-themed Christmas sweaters they bought just to annoy you can be mind-numbingly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":27264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2104,3346,2109,2111,3603],"tags":[2649,3768,441,3482,3051],"class_list":["post-27263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-off-beat","category-opinion","category-shows","category-society","tag-claudes-column","tag-festivus","tag-holidays","tag-samuel-j-claude","tag-seinfeld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-75J","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Screenshot-4.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27267,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27263\/revisions\/27267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}