Cabot House Rejects Christmas, Hanukkah; Instead, Apotheosis of Frank Costanza

While some of the Houses have stuck with the tried and true this holiday season—with dining halls adorned in colored lights, tinsel, wreaths, and ribbons—Cabot House has outdone them all with a nine-foot aluminum pole.

The unadorned pole is one of the many trappings of the secular holiday Festivus, popularized by the sitcom “Seinfeld” during a 1997 episode entitled “The Strike.” Frank Costanza, father of the recurring character George Costanza, claims to have invented the holiday as a protest against the commercialization of Christmas.

“A Festivus for the rest of us,” as Frank proclaims, has led real-life Cabot to hold an annual celebration of the new holiday, this year on Sunday, December 10, which included a spread bountiful enough to include everyone, with food from Greece, India, Ethiopia, Thailand, and Mexico. Dinner was strictly Cabot-only; each student given a Festivus pin they had to wear in order be admitted (though the pins read 2005).

Rachel M. Douglas ’09, who is also a Crimson editor, gorged on two servings of macaroni, four pieces of cornbread, two pieces of sponge bread, one samosa, two and a half cannoli, three bites of baklava, a scoop of sorbet, four pieces of chocolate, eggnog, and one carrot. Her roommate Angelica W. Nierras ’09 was busy finishing her fifth plate.

While eating a lot isn’t an essential component of Festivus, the roommates also partook in the traditional “Airing of the Grievances.” In the Seinfeld episode, Frank Costanza tells Senifeld’s eccentric neighbor Cosmo Kramer, “At the Festivus dinner you gather your family around and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the past year!”

Following these instructions, Douglas, Nierras, and their two other roomies happily griped away about their poorly decorated common room. They were later planning to wrestle after dinner in observation of the “Feats of Strength” component of the holiday.

George would be proud. Or maybe he’d just bitch about it.