Well, here we are- the big week at last! I have three days off in a row- my usual Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I’m off on Thursday for… Festivus.
Yes, we take Festivus very seriously around here! I had to do a bit of finagling to get the day off. Obviously I didn’t tell my boss why I needed the day off- I vaguely alluded to an important “family celebration” and I had to get someone to cover my shift. And guess what… my sister sent me this:
It’s hard to explain how Festivus evolved for our family. In the early days, we used to air grievances, but that ended up getting out of control, ha ha, and didn’t feel very nice two days before Christmas. One year we also tried to replicate the Festivus dinner that George’s mom served, and that was pretty funny. The Festivus dinner was meatloaf on a bed of lettuce, and we modified that to be a Tofurkey roast on a bed of lettuce, with a bowl of peas on the side.
While that was fun, it wasn’t extremely appetizing so we also dropped that. Over the years, our Festivus traditions have solidified into basically our own holiday, with a couple nods to the Seinfeld original.
First things first! We go out for a bagel brunch. Bagels are obviously a Festivus food (thank you, Kramer.) Here’s a picture from several years ago- the Festivus bagel brunch:
This picture must have been about five years ago- both my kids have much shorter hair now! Also, fun fact: that purple cup contains my giant iced tea. I was training for a marathon and had run 20 miles that morning! It still stands out in my mind as being one of the best Festivus’s ever.
After the bagels, we split up; my husband leaves to do ALL his Christmas shopping. Yes, he waits until December 23rd. He’s insane, but in his defense, this is an extremely busy time for him, work-wise, and Christmas just kind of sneaks up on him. It’s so funny to me because I’ll have been working for weeks, getting all the kids’ presents bought and wrapped, stocking stuffers ready, etc. Then on the 23rd he’s like “I guess I should go to the store!” Surprisingly, he usually gets us some pretty good presents. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned there!
The kids and I do a little of our own shopping. We usually end up at Old Navy, and they pick out some things for my husband. One year we also went to Bed Bath and Beyond- earlier in the month my husband announced that he wanted a new steam mop for Christmas. I said, “Don’t be RIDICULOUS! That’s not a Christmas present!” But then on Festivus we bought his steam mop, wrapped it up really fancy, and hid it behind the tree. On Christmas morning we waited until everything else had been unwrapped, and then re-enacted the scene from Christmas Story where the kid thinks he didn’t get his BB gun. “Wait! What’s that? There’s one more present behind the tree…” The kids and I were laughing so hard and my husband had no idea what was going on- UNTIL HE UNWRAPPED HIS NEW STEAM MOP!
Anyway, after the Festivus shopping trip, the kids and I go home and have a big wrapping party. (My husband is usually working at this point.) Of course the “Santa” present are already wrapped and still hidden away, but we wrap all the presents we’re giving each other- we really go all out and try to make them as pretty as possible. Then we arrange them under the tree…
And at night we watch The Polar Express and have hot chocolate (you have to have hot chocolate when you’re watching The Polar Express!) So… our Festivus really has little to do with the original “holiday.” It’s really just a special day I spend with my kids. But we take it very seriously! Festivus has to be on the 23rd, and we have to do our usual activities.
On Christmas Eve we have another set of traditions. For the last ten years, my friend and her two girls have come over and we decorate cookies “for Santa.” Her girls are one year older and one year younger than my daughter, and although my son is now 19 and the girls are 11,12 and 13, we still decorate the Santa cookies.
Then we either have a Christmas Eve dinner or lunch with them. It depends on whether it’s an “early” or “late” year. The year we started this tradition, my friend was going through a divorce. Every year she and her husband alternate- on “early” years, she has the girls until 4:00 and then they go to their father. On “late” years, she doesn’t get them until 4:00. We just adjust our schedule to accommodate them. On “late” years they’ll stay at our house really late, and we’ll go for a walk after dinner to look at Christmas lights. On “early” years, we’ll finish the cookie decorating and lunch by 4:00 pm, and my kids and I will watch Christmas shows at night- Charlie Brown, Rudolph, The Grinch… all the classics. Once again, my husband will be working (he’s a trumpet player and always has a church gig on Christmas Eve.)
Christmas morning we open presents and make cinnamon rolls. Then the rest of the day is spent lazily at home- no one comes over and we don’t go anywhere. I love it! It’s a nice way to end the busy, busy season.
If anyone was eavesdropping on our family, they would think we were extremely strange. “Mom, is this an early or a late year?” “Did you get someone to cover your shift on Festivus yet?” Our holidays might be a little unusual, but I think traditions are important. My kids will definitely have a lot of happy Christmases to look back on.
How about you? Do you have specific things you do every year?
Anyone else celebrate Festivus? – I just remembered one year I sent my sister a Festivus card that said “You’ve disappointed me!” Must find more of those…
20 Responses
This is great. No I don’t celebrate Festivus but it sounds like more fun than Hanukkah and Christmas. Neither is fun at my house.
Whe I was growing up, we used to go to the movies on Christmas (that’s what Jews do on LI).
My ex-family had some fun traditions that involved drinking and watching old movies and big gift exchanges.
Currently I run in the am and then have dinner at my MILs… we don’t even exchange gifts anymore. Se what I mean, I need Festivus.
Yes, yes! You need Festivus! It’s tomorrow- maybe you can start celebrating it this year! In all seriousness, I’m sorry Christmas and Hanukkah aren’t fun for you. It must be super annoying to have all the hype surrounding these holidays that don’t have a special meaning for you. Looking on the bright side- I always get really sad when Christmas is over. There’s something to be said for staying on an even keel instead of having tremendous highs and lows.
We’ve almost always gone to my mother’s side of the family on Christmas Day. When we were Michiganders, we’d stay at my parents’ place (in Iowa) then get up really early to make the long drive to the family gathering. After we moved back to Iowa, we decided to have the “extended” family get-together on a different day than Christmas Day, and that allowed us to have our own Christmas morning with just our kids. Now days, I host the parents and my sister for dinner (early afternoon), so our Christmas morning is still our own. And, I usually go for a short run before everyone wakes up, LOL.
Ah, my kids always get up super early on Christmas (sigh) so I haven’t gone for a Christmas Day run in years! I just work it into my schedule as a rest day. I’m glad you can now have a relaxed Christmas morning- although I would imagine there was something exciting about making that drive to the family gathering.
Running 20 miles on Festivus morning followed by Bagels sounds perfect to me, Jenny!
As a family, we used to travel to the UK by car to visit my grandparents. That was always exciting and great fun. Imagine, travelling with 4 kids in a car for two days in the middle of winter. Nowadays, we don’t have any special traditions, but I love to watch “Love, Actually” this time of the year.
It’s so crazy but I’ve never seen that movie! I’ve always wanted to see it, too- maybe this will finally be the year.
Festivus sounds like pure fun, and could you ever have too many mugs?!
Those presents are so beautifully wrapped! Love all the ribbon.
And I think it’s special that your family understands all the language around your holiday traditions – that’s part of what makes it special and unique!
We have lots of traditions – a new one last year was NOT having turkey on Christmas. We have our big, traditional breakfast, and then a charcuterie board for lunch, all prepped by my husband. Supper is a crockpot meal. It makes the day so much more relaxed and then we have the turkey on Boxing Day/Dec 26th. I LOVED this (and last year we actually went out on a family adventure on Christmas Day, which was really fun – I always find the afternoon can feel a bit “down” as the excitement is over and we’re prone to just sit and eat, so getting out of the house and exercising was a great way to spend the afternoon, though it is admittedly very weather dependent where I live in Canada).
Yes- that’s a great idea to have a more relaxed dinner on Christmas. We always have lasagna, and I will admit there’s always a point in the afternoon where I inwardly groan when I realize I have to start cooking. Also I totally know that “down” feeling on Christmas afternoon- I used to really suffer from it when I was little, and we never went anywhere- like you said, I just sat around eating. I know it’s weather-related for you, but it would be a fun time to go out sledding or something.
OH MY GOD I FOUND SOMEONE ELSE WHO CELEBRATES FESTIVUS!! It’s a Festivus miracle!
I actually found a Festivus board game and I am planning on us unwrapping it and playing it tomorrow. You’ve disappointed me, and now you’re going to hear about it.
I love reading your Christmas traditions. The guys are going to decorate a gingerbread house on the 24th, which is their tradition, and it always looks terrible. There is always something ridiculous about it, so that will be fun.
Your husband and the steam mop, that’s fantastic. Have a Merry Christmas, and I hope you have lots of feats of strength tomorrow!
Ha ha… we always decorate gingerbread houses too and they still look terrible, even though my kids are teenagers- it doesn’t look that much different from when they were toddlers!
Have a Happy Festivus (tomorrow!) and Merry Christmas!!!
We have very basic traditions as a couple: put up a tree, send out cards, go somewhere to see lights, and exchange gifts. We’ve never really sorted out *where* we spend the actual holiday, though. Sometimes we’ve been with my in-laws and sometimes with my family. It’s a challenging time for us, though – splitting time is a difficult thing to balance in “normal times,” but everything seems so much more fraught now.
I have never known anyone to celebrate Festivus, though! That’s a really fun tradition!
So heres the thing- both my parents and my husband’s parents are gone. It makes me so, so sad that my kids have no grandparents! It definitely makes holidays more simple- but I would rather have them here and deal with the complications. Oh well.
More mugs! Yay. (I won’t mention that I basically got three more mugs for Christmas this year and I REALLY don’t need any more LOL)
I love, love, love your Festivus tradition. I never watched Seinfeld (it’s not a show that made it over to Europe/Germany like so many other shows) and I only have caught a glimpse here or there since living in the US… so I didn’t know about Festivus, but I think you guys made it an AWESOME pre-Christmas day for the whole family! I love untraditional traditions!
My family had a lot of traditions growing up, but now that Jon and I have been spending many Christmases alone, just the two of us, there aren’t too many… other that I always set a nice Christmas Eve dinner table (including decorations, candles, menu cards, etc.), we cook a nice dinner and watch “A child’s Christmas in Wales” and/or “It’s a wonderful life” after dinner. And then we enjoy the fake TV fireplace LOL
I don’t follow many of my family’s traditions that we had growing up anymore- as the years have gone on, the four of us have formed our own traditions. I suspect my kids will do the same with their families.
I have never heard before of Festivus but it sounds like a fun tradition.
Here we celebrate with all the family the Christmas Eve and the Christmas dinners where we exchange the gifts under the decorated tree.
Enjoy the Festivus day!
Thank you! Yes, if I’m not mistaken Christmas Eve is more of a big family celebration day in Europe? Anyway i hope you enjoyed your holiday!
I LOVE all these traditions! They are so fun and so special. LOL at your husband’s approach to Christmas shopping. The closest I come is trying hard not to start until after Thanksgiving (#respectthebird). We’ve out grown most of our Christmas traditions – Christmas Eve service, followed by cocoa and cookies and opening new PJs — but I still make my cranberry coffee to have with peppermint bark for my Christmas morning breakfast.
Yes, I can see how as the kids get older a lot of these traditions will fall by the wayside. Your Christmas morning breakfast sounds amazing!
Festivus! I’ve heard of this holiday colloquially, but I didn’t realize where it came from. You learn something new every day!
Holiday traditions are so special and your kids are going to be reminiscing about the ones you’ve implemented in your family for a long, long time. <3
Yes, people who didn’t watch Seinfeld are probably wondering what in the world people are talking about, ha ha. It’s true, my kids will be reminiscing about our traditions, just the same way I think back so fondly about my holidays as a kid. I love holidays!