Novem Life, Yo!

FESTIVUS is an annual holiday invented by writer Dan O’Keefe and introduced into popular culture by his son Daniel, (past) scriptwriter for (the popular) TV show Seinfeld.  Although the original Festivus took place in February 1966 as a celebration of O’Keefe’s first date with his wife, Deborah, people now celebrate the holiday on December 23, as depicted on the December 18, 1997 Seinfeld episode “The Strike” According to O’Keefe, the name Festivus “just popped into his head.”
– Wikipedia’s, tvWiki www.tvwiki.tv/wiki/Festivus

In 2003, some 37 years after the creation of FESTIVUS, members of Novem Studios together with a large list of Chicagoan friends and families began celebrating this same Holiday. The difference mainly being that Festivus was to be celebrated the day before Thanksgiving. Since Novem’s circle of friends and fam’ have always been so diverse, one may not celebrate Christmas, or Chanukah… or furthermore, anything at all.

But there began, FESTIVUS.

Some recall the first time Festivus was held by our circle friends at the secret location ‘Ground Zero’. Ironic enough, that same location was where NovemStudios lived while the festivities were cherished. One of the homies cooked a turkey, grievances were aired. At ‘Ground Zero’ (M.O. will tell you), we smoked hookah, had ham… and it was what every ‘family of friends’ as I call it, should have.

In 2007, for the first time, festivus didn’t happen. Some crews in our City, including the team at Novem, were left without one of their most recently celebrated and dear holidays.  Some called it the death of festivus; some said it would be back, others seemed to not have cared at all.

Since then, I can say that there hasn’t been much talk about our celebration. Actually, there wasn’t talk at all. There was no flyer, email, post it note, poster, light in the sky… bulletin. That hadn’t been necessary in the past either but, you know what I mean. As I recall, all that went on in the early weeks of November was; hard work and preparation for the thing that we get ready for in Chicago, the winter.

The Tuesday before festivus, I get a phone call while I’m sitting in Spanish. I don’t do texts at all, so I had to walk out of class to call him back and Tommy says,<Br><Br>

“Festivus, bring the deep-fryer to my house, it’s going down at seven.”
I told him, “Done.”
He says, “I’m getting on a plane to Florida in an hour. Have fun. Happy Festivus, Happy Thanksgiving.”
I told FYM, “No problem, but to try and get someone to pick up at least 20 pounds of peanut oil.”

So yeah… a festivus miracle happened.

Besides my best friend and son, Onyx, being there…
There was: 24 pounds of deep-fried turkey
(*note: I had to cut that sucka’ in half and forced em’ in the deep fryer at separate times)
Stuffing
Corn-bread
Chunky Chozilla’s Cheesy Bread (WHATCHU KNOW?)
Pasta Salad
Cranberry Sauce
Guacamole
Bean and Cheese Dip
Gravy
Scalloped Potatoes
Empanadas
Samosa
Jelabi
Pear Pie w/ Caramel Sauce
Cookies
Jim Beam
Jameson
Seagram’s
Dane’s Home Brew
BEERS
BEERS
Wine/Vino
Garcia Vega’s
and plenty more that I’m too full to remember.

It was a great night… really, all there is to do now is let you see the flicks and tell you to join us when Festivus returns next year.
You never know, it might happen at your crib… :)

——

Mr. Menace