Festivus Passes without a Blip

A colleague of mine, Shaun Courtney, a local editor based in Georgetown, that should have been mine.

Courtney's Patch reported that on Dec. 23, a local Georgetown restaurant would be hosting a three-course meal, featuring Seinfeldian fare like "big salads," and the traditional Festivus meatloaf.

Another colleague based in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, that in his town, a local bar has been celebrating Festivus for five years with a sit down Festivus meal, modeled after the one Frank Costanza hosted in his Queens home in the "The Strike" episode of Seinfeld, where Festivus was incarnated for the TV-watching public.

We know that Festivus fictitiously originated in Bayside. "I was afraid that I would be persecuted for my beliefs," George Costanza famously tells his boss. "They drove my family out of Bayside, Sir!"

While Bayside is in real life a tolerant place, it is not a place where the Festivus spirit is perceptible.

We do not celebrate our fictional holiday in the same was as Roswell, New Mexico owns its lore; We have no Festivus-themed restaurants, or Seinfeld gift shops.

We don't have a several-days-long festival, attracting  thousands of tourists, as Bloomsday is celebrated in Dublin.

Bayside Patch couldn't even find a Festivus meal or celebration in the neighborhood for coverage to mark the day.

So my colleagues in Washington D.C. are celebrating this irreverent, kooky holiday, while I'm wondering why we aren't.

Bayside Village is known in Eastern Queens for its nightlife, but less known around the city at large.

If Bayside were to embrace Dec. 23^rd next year as a chance to attract out-of-towners, so to speak — people from the other boroughs—would they cross the bridge or tunnel to come, revel and spend?

"The thought has merit," said Gregg Sullivan, director of the . He was perhaps being polite.

But then, Manhattanites every year make the trek to Coney Island for the Mermaid Parade.

For the year to come, I hope that the BID, or some enterprising bar will revive the tradition that, even in fiction, was never embraced by Bayside.