Festivus - A Wrap for the Rest of Us!

There's a party goin' on right here
A celebration to last throughout the years
So bring your good times, and your laughter too
We gonna celebrate your party with you

Come on now

Celebration
Let's all celebrate and have a good time
Celebration
We gonna celebrate and have a good time

- Kool & the Gang

According to Wikipedia, "Festivus is an annual holiday created by writer Dan O'Keefe and introduced into popular culture by his son Daniel, a scriptwriter for the TV show Seinfeld.

The holiday includes novel practices such as the "Airing of Grievances", in which each person tells everyone else all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year. Also, after the Festivus meal, the "Feats of Strength" are performed, involving wrestling the head of the household to the floor, with the holiday ending only if the head of the household is actually pinned. These conventions originated with the TV episode."

But I knew that.

What I didn't know, was that it is celebrated as an actual holiday and pre-dates the Seinfeld show that brought it to the public's attention.

Turns out the show's writer - Daniel O'Keefe - has published a book The Real Festivus, which provides a first-person account of an early version of the Festivus holiday as celebrated by the O'Keefe family, and how O'Keefe amended or replaced details of his father's invention to create the Seinfeld episode.

And that's not all.

There is another book called Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us, that chronicles the spread of Festivus in the real world. It even has a website, people!

Little did I realize the depth and serious nature of this nomenclature, when I chose it for my latest pattern.

Silly me...

FESTIVUS WRAP $4

SIZE:
24 inches wide by 72 inches long


MATERIALS:
6 balls (816 yds.) Noro Silk Garden Lite
or other DK weight yarn
Color: 2048
Size 7 (US) needles

GAUGE:
Approx. 4 stitches = 1 inch (blocked)

SUITABLE FOR THE BEGINNING LACE KNITTER
CHARTED AND WRITTEN DIRECTIONS

I used a yarnover/SSK pattern with a zigzag built in. Kept the pattern simple, so it doesn’t overwhelm the color change. Yet it has strong enough lines that the yarn doesn’t obscure the pattern.

I made mine in the Silk Garden Lite, but you could easily substitute regular Silk Garden or Kureyon, swap the needle up a couple sizes and decrease the number of repeats.

OR...

You could use one of Noro's sock yarns instead, use a smaller needle, and make it a scarf!

So many ways to celebrate...

Festivus - for the rest of us!

Catchy...