BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — The Collegiate Water Polo Association/Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference/Northeast Water Polo Conference wish all of the leagues’ membership, alumni and fans a Happy Festivus.
Appearing in a 1997 episode of Seinfeld, Festivus is a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 as an alternative to the perceived pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season. Originally created by author Daniel O’Keefe, Festivus entered popular culture after it was made the focus of the 1997 Seinfeld episode “The Strike”, which O’Keefe’s son, Dan O’Keefe, co-wrote.
The non-commercial holiday’s celebration, as depicted on Seinfeld, occurs on December 23 and includes a Festivus dinner, an unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, practices such as the “airing of grievances” and “feats of strength”, and the labeling of easily explainable events as “Festivus miracles”. The episode refers to it as “a Festivus for the rest of us”.
The holiday, as portrayed in the Seinfeld episode, includes practices such as the “airing of grievances”. During the Festivus meal, each person is given the chance to “air their grievances” by telling everyone else at the table all of the ways that they have disappointed the speaker during the past year. After the meal, the “feats of strength” are performed, involving wrestling the head of the household to the floor, with the holiday ending only if the head of the household is pinned
Festivus was conceived by author and editor Daniel O’Keefe, the father of television writer Dan O’Keefe, and was celebrated by his family as early as 1966. While the Latin word fēstīvus means “excellent, jovial, lively”, and derives from fēstus, meaning “joyous; holiday, feast day”, Festivus in this sense was coined by the elder O’Keefe. In the original O’Keefe tradition, the holiday would take place to celebrate the anniversary of Daniel O’Keefe’s first date with his future wife, Deborah. The phrase “a Festivus for the rest of us” originally referred to those remaining after the death of the elder O’Keefe’s mother, Jeanette, in 1976; i.e., the “rest of us” are the living, as opposed to the dead.
