Festivus

by Allen Salkin

  Created by a New Yorker who asked to be referred to as “Festina the Helpful Festivus Elf.”

  a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and inserted into a garlic press

  crushed ice

  2 ounces bourbon

  4 ounces San Pellegrino Limonata (you can substitute this with sour mix and a squirt of soda)

  Crush a little of the ginger into the bottom of a glass. Add the crushed ice and bourbon. If you are feeling particularly rough, it might help you to give the drink a few good shakes before you add the soda, but this is not necessary for the drink’s sake.

  FESTIVUS WINE

  Unlike Festivus beer, Festivus wine, made in Okema, Oklahoma, has been a success. It could be that the idea of bottling wine in the town where Woody Guthrie was born pleases the “this land was made for you and me” spirit of Festivus. Or it could be that a holiday that first flourished in southern Italy prefers being accompanied by the fruit of the vine rather than the ferment of dusty grain.

  “Our ranch is seven hundred acres in Oklahoma,” says Jack Whiteman, co-owner of Grape Ranch. “And we have some oil and gas properties on it. We had forty acres there that was crappy sandy soil and nothing would grow, so we thought maybe we’d grow grapes on there—and darned if it didn’t take off.”

  Because the first grapes weren’t planted on the ranch until 2002, and would take years to be ready for cultivation, Whiteman got a start on building his business by buying bulk wine from California and bottling it on the ranch.

  Why call the stuff Festivus?

  “I was always a Seinfeld fan and thought it would have some marginal interest,” Whiteman says. “But it has had a lot of interest.”

  First distributed in 2004, Festivus, in red, rose, and chardonnay varieties, now sells hundreds of cases annually.

  Then there are the cheapskates who want their Festivus vino gratis.

  “We get many ‘opportunities’ each year to provide wine for Festivus-related events as a ‘sponsor,’ “Whiteman gripes. “Usually they really are just looking for free wine.” Which begs the question both freeloaders and potential paying customers may want answered: How does the stuff taste?

  Okema, Oklahoma’s finest vintage

  A Review of Festivus Red

  by Jim Clarke, wine critic for the respected Web site for culinary insiders, StarChefs.com

  The Grape Ranch Festivus Red 2002 is medium ruby in color, fading to a violet-pink rim. The nose is dominated by fruity aromas and a stab of alcohol; there are clear notes of blackberry, bing cherry, and plum, while more subtle, spicy aromas of cedar and clove round out the wine. The fruit-forward character continues on the palate, while the spices broaden into touches of chocolate and vanilla. These non-fruity elements suggest the tasteful use of oak-aging. However, the only place where oak really steps forward is in the tannins; the pull of wood tannins on the cheeks is gently apparent, while grape tannins, which typically show themselves in the front of the mouth, are pretty much nonexistent.

  It would make for a good cocktail wine, quite suitable to parties. Festivus Red won’t overwhelm many foods; barbecue, hamburgers, and chicken dishes should get along well with it.

  The wine’s only serious flaw is the alcohol; as noted on the nose, there are some balance issues here. The bottle says 13.4 percent alcohol, which is fairly typical for a California red. However, while the wine is not too weighty in the mouth, the flavors do not keep pace with the alcohol in the finish, leaving instead a rather strong burning sensation in the throat.

  SECTION 4

  At the Festivus Party

  Stupendous Feats of Strength in Winnipeg

  The Airing of Grievances

  Festivus is celebrated because people want to celebrate it, not because they have to. Gushing to someone that their aluminum pole is “beautiful, a real nice pole” mocks all the times people feel social pressure to make comments like, “Nice aboveground pool, Mike,” and “What a wonderful display of rat pelt coats, Marie—using them as wallpaper in the baby’s room . . . wonderful!”

  But such metaphorical subtlety as pole-praising is for early in the Festivus evening. Eventually most Festivus nights veer straight into the meat of the matter, the moment that never seems to come at “proper” social occasions: people telling others what they really think of them. This is the Airing of Grievances.

  Watching other people being told what disappointments they are can be fun

  TRADITIONAL

  Like everything else Festivus, the AOG has evolved some wild variations, but the core of it remains lashing into others and the world about how they have been disappointments. This usually brings participants into a circle of sorts in which each takes turns excoriating friends, enemies, relatives, acquaintances, and strangers. When all who care to have taken a turn griping, there is no required hugging or making up.

  That said, it is no mere coincidence that wrestling and other fury-absorbing Feats of Strength generally follow immediately after the AOG.

  NONTRADITIONAL: GRIEVANCE FRIDGES, POLE PIÑATA, AND THE ETERNAL LEDGER

  There are many clever ways to castigate. There are also many stupid ways.

  At Petros Kolyvas’s Festivus in Montreal, a dry-erase marker is tied to the refrigerator door. The grievances are scrawled on it throughout the night and are legible until someone either rubs against the door or is thrown against it. “The fridge was instituted,” says Kolyvas, a computer network consultant, “because if we did air grievances face-to-face, it might get out of hand, and people might start fighting.” It is true that recent fridge grievances, such as “F—ing cell phones won’t suck you off!” “Where the F— is Krista?!” “Kelly didn’t f—ing show!” and “I hate bending over,” imply a level of sexual frustration that could, if uttered aloud in mixed company, lead to nose-punching.

  Moving south, a group in Missouri asks everyone at their party to write down a grievance on a piece of paper and then stuff it inside the Festivus pole. At the end of the night, the pole, made of cardboard painted silver, is broken open like a piÑata, papers spill out like candy, and the grievances are read aloud.

  Grievance Examples

  Some of these were against the world, some against enemies, some against “stupid people,” and some against people’s own damn selves. At Festivus gatherings around the planet, they were shouted, scrawled in dry-erase pens on refrigerators, entered into permanent ledgers, pasted on poles, and posted on Web sites.

  I want this house to be decluttered—and I want you to get rid of all these ridiculous stuffed tigers!

  —DOUG RUBIN TO HIS WIFE IN PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

  My brother brakes my video games.

  —ANONYMOUS, NEW ORLEANS

  I don’t give a crap how much it sucks to be handicapped, a $200 fine for using a handicapped spot illegally is way, way out of line.

  —BILL DENNIS’S BLOG AT WWW.PEORIAPUNDIT.COM sponge-hockey team.

  Hoser, your girth is seriously slowing down the sponge-hockey team.

  —CREG PASEHNIK, WINNIPEG, ONTARIO

  I think candy canes suck, and wish that every fool that buys a cup of [coffee] . . . at $4 at pop would spill it on their laps and destroy their reproductive organs (it’s my belief that stupidity is inherited).

  —POST BY SOMEONE WITH THE SCREEN NAME JOE KAPPA ON THE FESTIVUS FORUM AT THE SEINFELD FAN WEB SITE WWW.STANTHECADDY.COM

  Laura: Is “BlueMoon” really the best pseudonym you could come up with?

  —WWW.TAINTEDBILL.COM

  The federal government ran a record $413 billion budget deficite for the fiscal year 2004. Congress responded by passing the bloated 205 omnibus budget package that was bursting with more than 11,000 pork projects. The House of Representatives shot down budget reform with the defeat of the Spending Control Act of 2004.

  —CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE ADVOCACY GROUP “TAXPAYERS CELEBRATE FESTIVUS!” PRESS RELEASE, DECEMBER 22, 2004

  The Burnham Plaza Theater—your place is a dump and
has been for five years.

  —CHICAGOIST.COMAIRING OF GRIEVANCES. DECEMBER 23, 2004 (A COMMENT OF THIS WAS POSTED BY A “RACHELLE” LATER THAT DAY: “WE OVER AT CHICAGO METBLOGCOULD TOTALLY PIN YOU CHICAGOIST WUSSIES. “)

  Motorists who leave top hats of snow on their car roofs are lazy. The entire sheet of snow can slide off, land on the person behind you or hit their windshield like an exploding mattress.

  —MAREK FUCHS, WHO AIRED HIS FESTIVUS GRIEVANCES IN A MARCH 2005NEW YORKTIMES PIECE “NOW IS THE WINTER OF A MALCONTENT“

  “Mom, given all the time you spent ignoring me as a child, I cannot believe you still have the nerve to demand that I drive ten hours one way to eat Christmas dinner with you in a truck stop because you are too damn lazy to cook and still can’t accept that I am capable of cooking the damn meal myself.”

  —ANONYMOUS POST ON FESTIVUSBOOK.COM, DECEMBER 17, 2007

  “To my throat-clearing co-worker: I hate it when you constantly clear your throat. I hate when you refuse a mint or a cough-drop. You are just an annoyance. Would you please do us all a favor and just stop? You are an inconsiderate ass . . .”

  —ANONYMOUS POST ON FESTIVUSBOOK.COM, DECEMBER 22, 2007

  “Tara, it’s espresso . . . not expresso!!!”

  —ANONYMOUS POST ON FESTIVUSBOOK.COM, SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

  “People that have to ask again and again when we are going to have kids: If we are (which we aren’t) it’s none of your damn business! Do we want to discuss it with you? Um, no. Do we need to talk about why? No. Leave it alone!”

  —ANONYMOUS POST ON FESTIVUSBOOK.COM, DECEMBER 25, 2007

  At Krista Soroka’s bash in Tampa, a fake-leather ledger book waits on a side table. Guests approach and enter grievances in it all night long: gripes about the injustice of Ronnie getting a girlfriend, the engorged size of the New York Yankees payroll, the pathetic state of Florida’s interstate road system and “the worst power grid ever.” The book is kept year-round on Soroka’s coffee table for visitors to mull over.

  GRIEVANCES VS. FLATTERY!

  Most nontraditional Airing of Grievances methods hew to the traditional idea of allowing people to unmitigatingly spew disappointment. But New Orleans, always roiling with spooky contradictions, figured out how to both celebrate and undermine the AOG.

  At Festivus, The Holiday Market for the Rest of Us, first held in December 2004 on Magazine Street, attendees were invited to write grievances on slips of paper and affix them to a Festivus pole. Hundreds of people aired complaints like: “ Don’t call me to place an order unless you actually know what you want!” “I hate the NOPS Payroll Dept,” “I singed off my eyebrows,” and “Why does my roommate insist on singing opera at all times?”

  SPACE TO GRIEVE

  If you are not the owner of this book, please write at least one grievance on the next page about the owner. If you are the owner, write complaints about your cheap friends who, for instance, are always borrowing your books and not returning them.

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  A betogaed Carlos Almendarez of San Francisco worships his foil-sheathed totem.

  In another homage to Seinfeld, the Holiday Market featured a “regifting station” where items including chipped vases and a shadow box display of golf tchotchkes were dropped off and free to anyone who wanted them. “Tags explained the history of each item,” says Renee Allie, who had the paid position of Festivus Coordinator. “That stuff kept moving. The table was small and there was stuff all over it.”

  Among the fifty local vendors actually selling things, there was a booth from the Native American Houma tribe, where flower pins made from gar fish scales were for sale. The gar, which has a mouth lined with needlelike fangs, is like the ancient Roman saperda: nasty. So that much was within Festivus tradition.

  What might not sit so well with Festivus fundamentalists (those who believe the Seinfeld text of Festivus is meant to be taken literally and no embellishment is allowed), was the Festivus market’s Flattery Booth, held in a colorful tent named the Office of Homeland Serenity. Here, eight “Festivus Flatterers” were assigned to shower one minute of praise on anyone who requested it. “They said things like, ‘You look fabulous,’” Allie says. “One flatterer played a ukulele and sang improv songs about people.”

  The fundamentalists can take heart. Bootlicking lost out to bitching; while about 180 people asked for flattery during the six-day event, more than 400 aired grievances.

  16-YEAR-OLD KYLAH AND HER FRIENDS AIR GRIEVANCES

  Kylah Eide and her friends love Festivus. They do it more than once a year. They used to gather in the Eides’ living room in Timmons, Ontario, until her mother got sick of Festivus and forbade it in the house. Recent Festivi have taken place outside in the snow. They use a vacuum cleaner as their pole, the only option they can afford on their allowance-based incomes. They burn tinsel. Then they grieve. Oh how they grieve.

  The Grievances My Friends and I Said to one Another

  by Kylah Eide

  “Courtney, you are a terrible sister. You’re the dumbest one in your class and think you’re better than everyone. I expected so much more than what you have become.” (Courtney was about 6 years old at the time, by the way) [sister’s name changed]

  “When we’re writing a script, you always tell everyone that you came up with my ideas.”

  “Your hair is disgusting.”

  “You wear your pants too low.”

  “You’re terrible at basketball. Stop playing for my team.”

  “I’ve never looked at your back without seeing a thong.”

  “We know you lie about being a natural blond.”

  “You have hair sticking out of your nose.”

  “Your boyfriend’s generally unattractive.”

  “I slept with your wife.”

  “Chris, even though you chew gum and everything, we can still smell your breath. So don’t stand so close to us when you talk.”

  Courtney did not take it well when her sister told her she was the dumbest girl in first grade

  “Stop laughing at your own jokes.”

  “You write bad poetry.”

  “We know you listen to techno.”

  We were starting to run out of bad things to say to each other. So we started pretending that we had other guests by doing intrepretations of them. For example, I remember telling John in my grandma’s voice, “John, your pants are too long. You can’t see your nice shoes!” and then making it more of a general grandmother’s complaint: “I don’t like Alanis Morrissette. Her hair is too stringy,” and “I like Celine Dion, but she’s a wretched-looking thing,” and “Boys who hav
e dreadlocks will murder you in the streets!”

  Feats of Strength

  As the Festivus evening progresses, human beings who have been groused at by other humans grow ornery. Orneriness begs discharge. Wrestling and other Feats of Strength deliver it.

  This is natural. In olden tymes, human beings gathered nightly in public places and spent the evening talking and griping about the state of affairs until, say, a fistfight would break out. Usually no one would be seriously hurt and eventually, energy spent, everyone would go home and feel a little better about everything. These moments, which modern society has rendered scarce, are made available to humans once again through the raw expression of the collective unconscious that is Festivus.

  Because fistfighting is viewed by many twenty-first-century folk as so seventh grade, Festivus devotees have tweaked the Feats of Strength in a jillion ways. There are no reported real-world cases yet of office equipment bench-pressing as an FOS variation, but, judging from the other bizarre FOS, it can’t be long until Dylan from HR is on his back in the kitchenette lifting the laser printer with four reams of 20-lb., 92-bright 8.5-by-11 paper stacked on top toward the fluorescents while the entire cubicle farm stands around cheering him on and/or hoping he loses his grip and takes a nasty blow to his solar plexus.

  Feats of Strength at the office Festivus Party

  WRESTLING

  Under the Seinfeld orthodoxy, Festivus is not over until the head of the household is pinned to the floor. There is an undeniable classic elegance to this, especially if the wrestling match is between a father and a son. Jerry Stiller, who as Frank Costanza on Seinfeld wrestled his son, George Costanza (played, of course, by Jason Alexander), on the Festivus episode, notes the Shakespearean connotations in that struggle. “We were dealing with the paternalistic connection and the need to survive,” he recalls. “George was the son who had gone nowhere with his life and I had to make him aware at the moment that he still had a ways to go.

  “It was another kind of way with dealing with something else that was going on at the time: the rebelliousness of the son against the father and the father trying to prove he was still stronger than the son,” Stiller continues. “It was like King Lear in Queens.”