‘Seinfeld’ Fans Are Honoring Jerry Stiller On The First Festivus Since He Passed Away

Today is December 23, which means it’s Finn Wolfhard’s birthday (the most important December birth, imo), as well as the annual airing of grievances known as Festivus.

The Christmas-adjacent holiday was introduced in the Seinfeld season nine episode, “The Strike,” and has since become “the perfect secular theme for an all-inclusive December gathering,” as the New York Times once wrote. In real life, it was created by Seinfeld writer Dan O’Keefe’s father, Daniel, but on the show, it’s Frank Costanza, played by Jerry Stiller, who comes up with the traditions. There’s the pole (it requires no direction because Frank finds tinsel “distracting”), the Feats of Strength (“Until you pin me, George, Festivus is not over”), and the Festivus dinner, where “you gather your family around and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year.”

There was a lot of disappointment in 2020, including losing Stiller, who passed away in May at 92 years old. On this, the first Festivus without Frank Costanza, Seinfeld fans are paying tribute to the actor who taught us that there’s a “Festivus for the rest of us.”

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“It’s a pretty good holiday when you think about it,” “The Strike” co-writer Jeff Schaffer told about Festivus’ legacy. “It’s the perfect antidote to Christmas when you’re supposed to pretend to be nice to everybody, and give them presents. Why not have its evil twin where you can sit around a pole and tell everyone what you don’t like about them?”

For much more on the origin of Festivus, click here.