13. The Strike
"Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way..." -Frank Costanza Let me ask you a serious question: is there a Seinfeld fan out there who hasn't at least once thought about celebrating Festivus, the feast with the airing of the family grievances and the feats of strength? The idea of Festivus, first postulated by the father of show writer Dan O'Keefe, was to boycott the commercialism that's been ingrained into the religious holiday season. Basically, the only thing from the show that didn't imitate O'Keefe's holiday dinner table was the aluminum pole, added solely for comic effect. George is offended when Dr. Whatley's gift to the gang at a holiday party is a donation in their names, so he makes up his own charity called "The Human Fund" and passes out the same gift at work, but it backfires when Mr. Kruger makes his own very large donation to the nonexistent charity. When George fesses up, he explains that he was embarrassed that he didn't celebrate Christmas, he celebrates Festivus. Kruger then comes over for Festivus dinner where the jabs during the airing of the grievances are aimed directly at him, thus Kruger nominates George for the feats of strength in some sweet, sweet payback. There were some other subplots, including Elaine giving a fake number, Kramer working at a bagel shop and Jerry dating a two-face, but let's face it: we all remember this episode in the test of time for the Festivus table.