[PW] Re: new holidays from TV shows...Re: ? TV Catchphrases (Quotation Query #635)

[Tobin, Karen]

And let's not forget my favorite, Chrismukkah, from The O.C.

Karen M. Tobin
Assistant Director
Goodnow Library
21 Concord Rd
Sudbury MA  01776
TobinK at town.sudbury.ma.us
978-443-1035 x228
http://library.sudbury.ma.us

-----Original Message-----
From: project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org
[mailto:project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On Behalf Of
Dayle Henshel
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:17 AM
To: list at project-wombat.org
Subject: [PW] new holidays from TV shows...Re: ? TV Catchphrases
(QuotationQuery #635)

These aren't exactly catch phrases, but in fact are useful new terms for

end-of-year holiday celebrations, originally from TV shows, that have
each 
actually taken on a life of their own in the real world:

1. From Seinfeld, a holiday called "Festivus" -

Definition/description from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus

Festivus is a nondenominational holiday featured in "The Strike" episode
of 
Seinfeld, a popular United States based television sitcom of the 1990s.
The 
holiday was a plot device in the episode, which first aired on December
18, 
1997. Many people, influenced or inspired by Seinfeld, now celebrate the

holiday, in varying degrees of seriousness. Some do it religiously;
others 
do it with good tidings in their respect to Seinfeld.

According to Seinfeld, Festivus is celebrated each year on December 23,
but 
many people celebrate it other times, often in early December. Its
slogan is 
"A Festivus for the rest of us!!" An aluminium pole is generally used in

lieu of a Christmas tree or other holiday decoration, shedding holiday 
materialism. Those attending participate in the "Airing of Grievances"
in 
which each person tells each and everyone else all the ways they've 
disappointed him/her over the past year, and after a Festivus dinner,
The 
"Feats of Strength" are performed. Traditionally, Festivus is not over
until 
the head of the household is wrestled to the floor and pinned....


2. From The OC tv show: "Chrismukkah" - a holiday for those who wish or
need 
to celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah. A kind of 2 for 1.

Info (also from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrismukkah)

Chrismukkah is the modern-day merging of the holidays of Christianity's 
Christmas and Judaism's Hanukkah as celebrated in interfaith households 
where one parent may be of Christian heritage and another parent of
Jewish 
heritage. The word itself is a portmanteau arisen through the blending
of 
the words "Christmas" and "Hanukkah". Chrismukkah is also celebrated as
an 
ironic, alternative winter holiday, much like the Seinfeld-derived 
"Festivus."

The term has been used for many years by some in the Jewish community to

comment on the commercialization of Hanukkah and the dominance of the 
commercialized Christmas in American culture. An exhibit at the Jewish 
Museum of Berlin (10/28/05- 1/28/06) called "Chrismukkah: Stories of 
Christmas and Hanukkah." sourced the origin of "Chrismukkah" to
German-Jews 
in the late 1800s who called the holiday "Weihnukkah". Weihnachten is
the 
German word for Christmas.

"A Christmas celebration with a tree, songs, and gifts became a symbol
of 
being a part of German culture for many middle-class Jewish families in
the 
19th century. Jews celebrated Christmas as a secular "festival of the
world 
around us" without religious meaning, or they transferred Christmas
customs 
to the Hanukkah festival. This mixture was and is referred to as 
"Chrismukkah."

In the United States, Chrismukkah was the subject of a facetious press 
release that was widely circulated on joke web sites in the late 1990s. 
Chrismukkah gained pop culture notoriety on December 3, 2003, after
being 
featured on the FOX television program The O.C.....


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Shapiro" <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>

>
> This is a query that by its nature could clog up the list with
irrelevant
> postings, so please send responses to me offlist at
fred.shapiro at yale.edu.
> If I get any kind of significant responses, I can summarize for the
list.
>
> TV Land has just issued a list of the 100 greatest catchphrases in TV
> history.  Many of these do not appear on the list of Television
> Catchphrases in The Yale Book of Quotations.  I am interested
particularly
> in considering adding catchphrases from recent decades to the second
> edition of the YBQ. 

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