A Holiday For The Rest Of Us
Happy Festivus!
December 23rd is already here? Life sure just keeps barreling on and on, always unrelenting and unforgiving. Good thing we have Festivus to look forward to every year! Festivus, for the uninformed, is a holiday for the rest of us.* Celebrations include airing of grievances, feats of strength, and finding Festivus miracles. Let’s dive into some of my own Festivus items, with a signature Billy twist.
*Check out Seinfeld Season 9, Episode 10 to see the origins of Festivus. If you’re boring and would rather read about it, here’s a boring link.
Airing of Grievances
Serious and not so serious items that aggravate me:
Trailer announcements on social media (I.e. Tomorrow the trailer for this movie will be released!). What are we doing? An announcement for the thing that is already an announcement for a thing?! I personally prefer for the trailer to just drop like any other old thing. I guess I'm old fashioned though.
David “Zas” Zaslav and the boys at Warner Bros. Discovery canceling great TV shows after they’d already been renewed. See also: Zas also taking great shows off HBO Max that I haven’t finished yet (RIP Minx and hopefully we meet again Westworld).
Reality TV. It’s never going to hit the peak that it hit in the 00’s yet there is so much more of it now, and it’s not good.
The Texas Power Grid. I shouldn’t have to worry about enacting an emergency plan every time the temps drop below freezing.
Feats of Strength
Unlike in Seinfeld, Feats of Strength are not just limited to physical strength in this newsletter. One could argue that spending time with and entertaining family is a feat of strength. I’ll even take that a step further and argue that binging tv for a week is a mental feat of strength for our ever-shrinking attention spans (thanks TikTok).
For those willing to give this feat of strength a shot, here are a couple of things worth checking out (in no particular order):
The English (Amazon Prime) - Stars Emily Blunt in a new and surprisingly original Western.
Fleishman Is in Trouble (Hulu) - Stars Jesse Eisenberg as the titular character who (Spoiler) is definitely in trouble.
Little America (AppleTV+) - Each episode is an inspiring, heartwarming, and sometimes heartbreaking story about modern-day immigrants in the USA.
Slow Horses (AppleTV+) - Gary Oldman (Sirius Black in Harry Potter) stars in this spy series, but the spies (who think they are hot shit) are all terrible at their jobs.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Sequel (Netflix) - Daniel Craig and a slew of other big names, including Kate Hudson and Edward Norton, join up for a new mystery from Rian Johnson.
Spirited (AppleTV+) - Stars Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell in a musical version of A Christmas Carol with a couple of good twists.
Nope (Peacock) - Jordan Peele’s latest film that I haven’t stopped thinking about for the last five months.
The Banshees of Inisherin (HBO Max) - Starring Colin Farrell and Michael Gleason in a period piece about two men who are at the end of their friendship (let it be known that this one is not for the queasy).
Barbarian (HBO Max) - A very scary good time! The less you know beforehand, the better.
The Last of Us (PlayStation) - Soon to be an HBO Original series, this is one of my favorite narrative-driven games. If you have access to a PS4 or PS5, it’s worth checking out before the show comes out in a few weeks.
Festivus Miracles
Things I take for granted every day, but are actually mind blowing once you stop and think about it:
Auto-response emails
Gluten Free Oreos
Vegan Butter and Cheese
A dog’s undying love for everyone
Solar powered electricity
Cats automatically knowing how to use a litter box
Timed pet feeders
Kitchen Aides
Diapers (who knew they could hold so much pee)
Have a great holiday everyone. See you next year ✌️