Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Happy Festivus

Enjoy airing your grievances and performing feats of strength with Festivus creator and former "Seinfeld" writer Dan O'Keefe, author of "The Real Festivus," who takes your question about how he came up with the holiday and its evolution over the years. Festivus is a secular holiday celebrated on December 23rd. It was created by writer Dan O'Keefe and introduced into popular culture by his son Daniel, a screenwriter for the TV show Seinfeld as part of a comical storyline on the show. The holiday's celebration, as shown on "Seinfeld", includes an aluminum "Festivus pole", practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and the "Feats of Strength", and the labeling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles".

Celebrants of the holiday sometimes refer to it as "Festivus for the rest of us", a saying taken from the O'Keefe family traditions and popularized in the "Seinfeld" episode to describe Festivus as "another way" to celebrate the season without participating in its pressures and commercialism.