Free Festivus by Allen Salkin

you
    “BABAGANOUSH!”
    Festivus we bait you
    Festivus we berate you
    Old babaganoush in the back of the fridge
    We wish we hadn’t a ate you
    “MINIATURE RACLETTE PICKLES!” (making the food item as ridiculous as possible is good strategy)
    Festivus we bait you
    Festivus we berate you
    Old miniature raclette pickles in the back of the fridge
    We wish we hadn’t a ate you
    (etcetera)

    THE FESTIV-US FESTIVAL
    The promoter of a showcase of underground music in Edmonton, Alberta, decided Festivus was the perfect name to slap on the event. It started as the working title and stuck, explains Jay Cairns. The homage to the holiday didn’t go as far as acquiring a pole. “We didn’t,” says Cairns, “have the stick or whatever.”
    O FESTIVUS!
    Joe, a member of the Texas National Guard who asked that his last name not be printed, was at a December 23 Festivus party in Dallas when the beer ran dry. “Not a lot of our girlfriends came,” Joe says. “They thought it was silly the same way women think the Three Stooges is silly as opposed to high art.”
    The group headed to a downtown bar called Dick’s Last Resort. “We had heard there was going to be some Festivus-celebrating there,” Joe says.
    Boy, was there. “A group of six at a table were belting out this Festivus song to the tune of ‘O Canada!’” Joe says. “No one could give me a coherent answer about who wrote it or when or how.” Ever resourceful, the military man scrawled the lyrics down on a scrap of paper.
    “I’ve hummed it in the car, but I haven’t performed it since and I probably won’t until next December 23.”
    A disciplined man. Here is what Joe took down. Sing to the tune of “O Canada!”
    O Festivus!
    Our humble holiday.
    Serenity Now is our only goal today.
    With glowing hearts we see thy shining pole,
    No tinsel there to distract our souls!
    From far and wide,
    O Festivus, to air grievances we’re free.
    Thy feats of strength are glorious to me.
    Frank Costanza, we tip our hat to thee.
    O Festivus, we’ll pin you first, you’ll see.

SECTION 6
    Beyond the Festivus Party

    Manifestations of Festivus
    Festivus lives. It is part of the conversation. Its nothingness has come to mean something.
    What is that something? Well, people have started naming cats “Festivus,” if that means anything. Evangelical Christians in North Carolina have tried recruiting the young by calling their Christmas parties Festivus parties. Does that mean anything?
    How about the fact that for two years Ben & Jerry’s produced a Festivus flavor of ice cream? Or that someone in Florida installed a Festivus sign next to a nativity scene on the lawn of a government building as a protest? Or that Festivus is the name of a National Football League quarterback’s regimen?
    Religion, commerce, sports, politics, pets—it must mean something, right?
    THE FESTIVUS HOUSE
    It’s Festivus 365 days a year at the Festivus House, a two-story structure with the word permanently mounted across its front, shared by four students at Miami University of Ohio.
    As one might imagine, there are hijinx galore.
    “One time some raw meat fell out of the freezer,” says resident Tyler Mecham, 21, a senior accounting major. “At the end of the night I was really drunk and picked it up and threw it against the wall as hard as I could and for the whole next day we had hardened raw meat on the wall.”

    The substance spilled on the steps of the Festivus House at Miami University was not identifiable
    There is a tradition at Miami, located in Oxford, Ohio, of students naming their houses, usually using puns and references to activities undergraduates find important: Genital Hospital, Boot ‘n’ Rally, and Octopussy are three recent house names.
    “Festivus” was born of a desire to be different. Execution was cheap. “We got some plywood, painted it with spray paint in the colors,” says housemate Josh Fawley, 21, pausing his video football game to chat with a visitor.