25 best Christmas TV episodes to watch this holiday season

Seinfeld -“The Strike”

How could we possibly leave out the episode that gave us one of the greatest made-up holidays of all time: Festivus? Throw out your Christmas trees and get out your aluminum poles because it’s time to celebrate Festivus with Seinfeld’s season 9 episode, “The Strike.”

After George, Elaine, and Jerry attend a friend’s Hanukkah party, George is offended when he receives a gift from that friend in the mail, a letter saying a donation was made in his name to charity. He also gets frazzled when there’s a holiday card from his father Frank wishing him a “Happy Festivus!”, which Jerry has to explain to Elaine. Frank created Festivus as an alternative holiday because he found Christmas and other holidays were far too commercialized, but it embarrasses George and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Kramer thinks Festivus is as great idea, but George disagrees, until it comes in handy. Instead of giving people in his office a gift, he makes up a fake charity called The Human Fund and gives everyone donation cards, inspired by the disappointing gift he got in the mail. He thinks he’s a genius for thinking up this way to get out of buying presents, until his boss Mr. Kruger gives George a big check ($20,000) as a corporate donation to The Human Fund, making George panics.

This is when Festivus comes in handy, because George admits he lied about The Human Fund because he didn’t want to be judged for celebrating a holiday other than Christmas. His boss tries to trap him in his lie and insists on going home with George to see Festivus celebrations with his own eyes.

There are a few customary Festivus traditions that play out in this episode. First, instead of a Christmas tree, there’s a Festivus pole, an aluminum pole that is displayed unadorned. Second, there’s a Festivus meal, of course, which George brings Mr. Kruger to. Immediately after dinner is the “Airing of Grievances,” which is exactly what it sounds like (as Frank Costanza says, “I got a lotta problems with you people and now you’re going to hear about it!”).

Last but not least, there are the Feats of Strength, where the head of the household challenges someone to a wrestling match. You don’t see much of this happen on the episode, but we know that George has been traumatized by the Feats of Strength in the past. One must pin the head of the household’s head in order to close out Festivus, or else it continues until you can do so. What a wild holiday!