Festivus (9 page)

This, the author suggests, is unFestivuslike.

Festivus Miracles

These are basically not miracles. Like the praising of a host’s bare aluminum pole, declaring that something is “a Festivus miracle!” is a smart-ass way Festivusers mock the clichés of other holidays. One such cliché is apparent every time a 6—5 college football team wins whatever lame bowl game is being played on December 25 that year, and the team’s local newspaper headlines the victory a “CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!”

Christmas and Hanukkah and other “real” holidays are supposed to commemorate real miracles, like a one-day supply of oil lasting eight days and a virgin giving birth—not a trained field goal kicker kicking a 28-yard winning field goal against another 6–5 team or an automobile company offering onetime only 1.5 percent financing on all vehicles bought from dealer stock before January 10.

In fact, a mediocre deal on car financing and a field goal kicker kicking a field goal are much more like Festivus miracles than Christmas miracles, no matter what a TV ad or a sports page blares. They’re not miraculous. Just as someone’s friend named Max who was invited to a Festivus party and who said he was going to show up at that Festivus party and who is known for keeping his commitments actually arriving at the party sometime around the time he said he was going to arrive is not a real miracle. It’s a semipleasant or potentially unpleasant—if Max is not well-liked—reality.

Thus, when Max enters the room, Festivus custom deems it appropriate to cry out, “Max is here! It’s a Festivus miracle.”

If Max is not liked, it is considered best for the person who likes him least to declare the miracle. In that way, the automobile company, the 6—5 team, Max, and everything else so deserving is mocked.

New Festivus Activities

The rules of this holiday are not written in stone—or even Jell-O. There are no unbreakable rules written down at all. It is possible that there is a holiday being celebrated right now on the planet Gorzex during which elder females, for entertainment, spew regurgitated skeelg larvae onto fled-derberry flowers. As long as that behavior is not absolutely required by the dictates of some higher authority, the Gorzexians are free to call the holiday Festivus as far as any Earthlings are concerned.

In fact, they can change the whole thing around and juggle ligmomarry pups (they like being juggled) on their Festivus if they want. Festivus can stand it. Can any other human holiday?

Evidence for this Gorzexian level of adaptability is found in the way humans here on Earth have molded the holiday to fit their whims.

WASHER PITCHING

For instance, the Festivus party that Katherine Willis, an actress, and her husband, Jed Thornock, a computer programmer, give in Austin, Texas, every Christmas Eve eve includes a backyard game of “pitching washers.” Katherine calls it “the redneck equivalent of horseshoes.”

“There’s basically a hole in the ground,” she says. “You try to throw the washers in the hole, and apparently the more you drink the better you get at it.”

A new festivus ritual

The game of pitching washers and Festivus share similar homespun roots. It’s not surprising they found each other. In its literature, the International Association of Washer Players (IAWP) suggests the game likely started with a backyard wager that went something like: “Betcha I can toss this here washer into that oil can over yonder.”

Here Are the Basic IAWP Rules for Pitching Washers

(A complete set, along with tips on strategy, is available at
www.washers.org
.)

If possible, use 2.5-inch-diameter washers.

Generally, there should be two holes in the ground, each about 4 inches in diameter and 4.5 inches in depth, 25 feet apart with players facing one another. Players must pitch from within one stride of the hole on their side.

Each player’s turn consists of pitching two washers at the opposite hole. A washer in the hole (called “a cupper”) counts for 5 points unless an opponent also holes one, in which case the cupper is considered “capped” and is canceled out.

After each round, if no one has scored 5 points, the washer closest to the hole counts for one point.

First team to 21 wins: 11-0 is a skunk.

FESTIVUS FRISBEE GOLF

In the spirit of travel to Gorzex, Festivus for Greg Johnson is all about flying saucers—of a sort. Because disc golf uses poles as targets instead of holes as in regular golf, it occurred to Greg, a
Seinfeld
fan and treasurer of the Willamette Disc Golf Club, to name the annual local tournament he hosts “Festivus.” He prints special discs, showing Mary’s Peak of the Oregon Coast Range in the background and a pole in the center.

Festivus Frisbee golf uses poles as holes

In 2004, tournament co-winners split a $78 prize. “I would have won myself for the Advanced Masters division,” Greg, still upset, says, “if not for a
Tin Cup
—style collapse, throwing out of bounds three times in a row on my second-to-last hole.” Before the event, there’d been talk that the tourney couldn’t end until someone wrestled Greg to the ground. In the end, no one tried. “They figured I was not in the mood after my collapse.”

FESTIVUS TRIVIA TEAM

For a group of college students in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Festivus is celebrated with trivia. The “Festivus for the Rest of Us” group bills itself as “The Hottest Young Trivia Team This Side of the Little Plover River.”

FFTROU competes in major regional contests. Generally, these marathon competitions are run by small radio stations, which broadcast questions over the air. Dozens—sometimes hundreds–of teams like FFTROU gather themselves computer-filled rooms and try to find answers quickly as possible using any resource they want. The answers are phoned in to the radio station and after fifty or so straight hours of trivia, the team with the highest score wins.

Trivia team logo

FFTROU celebrates a correct answer with a victory dance

Things can get strange in the pressure cooker of the trivia room at contest time. After taking a bite of a friend’s brownie at a 2003 contest, team co-captain Greg Ormes looked up in bliss and asked, “Has the whole world gone delicious?” Later, team member Justin Young wondered aloud, “Did you know we could clean the whole room with duct tape?”

FFTROU’s highest finish so far is 29th out of 72 teams at the St. Cloud, Minnesota, TSI: Trivia Scene Investigation contest run by station KVSC 88.1-FM. During hour 13 of that contest came one of FFTROU’s greatest moments, a complete guess that turned out to be correct. “A Festivus Miracle,” Greg says.

QUESTION
: In the television series
Kablam!
during the segment “Life with Loopy” there was a skit called “2000 Leagues Under the Sofa.” What did level 94 feature?

ANSWER: Jimmy Hoffa.

Festivus Mating Rituals

The AOG, the FOS—enough rituals for some, but for others, a party’s not a party unless there’s booty-chasing. That’s why these Festivus innovators have added activities to set the libido panting.

Festivus can sometimes get complicated

KISS YOUR EX-LOVER

Bob and Jane and Ted and Lise have had about as many romantic entanglements with one another as a group of four can have. Most of the year, the 50-something-year-olds live separate lives, but come Festivus, which for them flits between January and February depending on the friends’ schedules, everyone heads to Lise’s apartment in Binghamton, New York, and the old sparks fly.

“Tom and Bob still lust after Lise,” says Jane Harrow, a retired schoolteacher and, according to her, the most chaste of the bunch.

There must be some magic in that old aluminum banister Jane drags over each year and plunks into a Christmas tree stand. In the middle of winter, passions of springtimes past blossom anew. “Lise is extremely vain and extremely good-looking,” Jane says. “We take group photos, always one with Bob kissing Lise.”

The four soldier on, ignoring the month and the years of the calendar, hewing to their invented take on the invented holiday. They sing “O Festivus” to the tune of “O Christmas Tree,” adding the lyrics, “for the rest of us.” They eat macaroons. Last year Tom gave Jane a gift, a DVD of
Saturday Night Live.
She doesn’t have a DVD player. She complained at his thoughtlessness. He accepted that he was a disappointment. By midnight it was over. As can happen when salad days have passed, nothing went beyond the kissing and everyone slept snug in separate beds.