Celebrate Festivus by airing your grievances and a Florida newspaper will print your complaints

Festivus is here! Which means it’s time to unbottle any pent-up anger to confront whatever or whoever has gotten under your skin this year – and later this month the Tampa Bay Times will publish these grievances.

While Festivus is held days before Christmas, the tradition is nearly polar opposite to the joyful holiday. Instead of a decorated balsam fir tree, it’s symbolized with a plain aluminum metal pole and instead of spreading love, you spew out complaints.

This fictional holiday made its debut in the 1997 Seinfeld episode, “The Strike”, when Frank Costanza, played by Jerry Stiller, introduced Festivus to his family, featuring the “airing of grievances” and “feats of strength.”

He kicks off the airing of grievances by shouting, “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people and now you’re going to hear about it!”

Since then, the unconventional holiday has been practiced off-screen, at bars, parties, and family events. People around the world observe this tradition by letting out any gripes they may have with their loved ones and not-so loved ones, along with complaints about jobs, trends, and businesses.

“The petty annoyances of life add up,” said Christopher Spata, a feature writer with the Tampa Bay Times – and arguably a Festivus expert. He describes the sitcom holiday as a “secular anti-consumerism alternative Christmas.”

“Airing your grievances is a cathartic way to leave behind whatever irked you in the past 12 months, as we move forward into a fresh new year,” Spata said. “And maybe, airing out what we all did to annoy each other in 2023, could actually be the start of all of us treating each other with more love in 2024.”

After a second thought…

“Probably not, of course,” Spata laughed. “But hey, it’s still pretty funny.”

Spata introduced Festivus to the Tampa Bay Times eight years ago, now it’s an annual tradition. The Florida newspaper is inviting people all over the world to submit their grievances on any subject of their choice before Dec. 7.

One of his favorites came from a mother in St. Petersburg.

While complaints range from family, sports, businesses, to politics, Spata said he notices recurring themes show up every year, and e-scooters are one of them.

“We got dozens of complaints about those scooters all over the streets,” he said. “Sometimes it’s tough to get new ones every year.”

Another trending grievance is consumers not returning their shopping carts to the designated area and leaving them in the parking lot, according to the Festivus coordinator.

During the pandemic, people had a lot to complain about, Spata said. “Obviously, during COVID there were a lot of masks related (grievances),” he told CNN. “Like ‘why is your nose sticking out of your mask?’ and ‘why are you pulling your mask down to talk to me?’”

“Even though most of the responses we publish are humorous, we also get some that are very earnest, and occasionally, quite sad,” Spata said. In the same year, a woman expressed how her mental health wasn’t doing well.

While some submissions are heavier than others, Festivus should be a safe space, according to the tradition coordinator.

“If it goes in a newspaper, at least someone out there is going to read it. Sometimes you just want to be heard, even if there’s no solution,” Spata said.

And that’s ultimately the meaning of “a Festivus for the rest of us,” Stiller’s character would declare.

The idea to bring Festivus to the Tampa Bay Times came after his co-workers at his previous job would anonymously put their dissatisfactions in a box.

“And then during our work holiday party, one person would stand up and read all the grievances,” Spata said, which were usually about dirty desks or other bad work habits.

“We would all die laughing at these grievances,” he told CNN. “I highly recommend that people do this with their coworkers or their family.”

This encouraged him to extend this practice to the Tampa Bay Times, and invite participation from the public. Each year, the Florida newspaper receives hundreds of submissions, and the most relevant, yet clever ones are printed.

He said it’s become such a tradition, that here’s only one thing that could make him stop doing it.

“If we could get Jerry Seinfeld or maybe Larry David to send in a grievance, that would be my ultimate dream,” Spata told CNN.

“Larry David is the king of trivial and petty complaints,” he continued. “So I think if he would send me one, then I could retire.”

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