‘Twas the night before Festivus

‘Twas the night before Festivus, and all through the house, not a wallet was sighted, and I was losing my freaking mind.

It had been a good day until the point where I lost my wallet. My daughter, Paige, was home from school, and I took her to my friends –  Eric Klesper and Rob Azevedo’s – bar, Pembroke City Limits, where we had some drinks, shared some vegan cuisine from the award-winning Sleazy Vegan, and even saw Santa Claus.

And the next day was Festivus, a holiday that Paige and I have been celebrating for years now.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the holiday, Festivus derives from an episode of the television show “Seinfeld” titled “The Strike” (Season 9, Episode 10) where we are introduced to a holiday that George Constanza’s father Frank (Jerry Stiller) invented to combat the rabid consumerism that overtakes the Christmas season each year.

“It’s a Festivus for the rest of us,” Frank Constanza proudly proclaims when describing the holiday that occurs on Dec. 23 and includes activities such as the annual “Airing of Grievances” and concludes with the “Feats of Strength.”

Being both a wise-ass and a Seinfeld fan, I have been recognizing Festivus for decades and introduced the holiday to my daughter when she began college.

Each year, I make the traditional Festivus meatloaf—a dish that our family never makes otherwise—and on our way home from Pembroke City Limits, we stopped at Hannaford’s for the fixings for our Festivus dinner.

When we got home from the supermarket and settled in to watch the Patriots game—after my DraftKings was depleted by a Christmas cuckold from the Washington Commandeers—I noticed that my wallet was missing.

Immediately, I went into panic-mode. There is nothing worse than losing a wallet with all of your identification and access to money¹. It involves hours of phone calls cancelling cards and ordering new ones, and a visit to the DMV for a replacement driver’s license then waiting for weeks for all of the new cards to arrive via the U.S. mail.

Now, compound that with it being the holiday season, and you have an authentic shit-show on your hands.

So after scouring my car and house, checking between every possible cushion, in every nook and cranny, I drove back to Hannaford’s and asked the people at the service desk if they found a wallet—no wallet—then I combed the parking lot using the flashlight on my phone.

Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. No wallet.

So I drove home in despair then got into bed, fearing that Fate had cast an unforgiving fog on our annual Festivus celebration, and I went to sleep. That night I dreamed that I found my wallet on the nightstand by my bed and woke in the middle of my dream vaguely hopeful.

But, alas, it was only a dream.

The next morning, on Festivus, my wife came into the bedroom around 7:30 a.m. and dropped a battered slab of knock-off leather on the nightstand. “Look what I found,” she said.

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. It was a Festivus miracle!

“Where did you find it?” I asked.

“It was in the kitchen drawer with the scissors and the tape,” she said. “I went to wrap Christmas presents and found it there².”

My relief cannot be adequately described. So Paige, her friend Payton, and I celebrated Festivus by watching the “Seinfeld” episode then dining on a decisively mediocre meatloaf after airing our yearly grievances³ around the Festivus pole in the kitchen.

And I quietly celebrated the Festivus miracle that awakened me that morning and promptly ordered a wallet tracker from Amazon. It arrives on Friday.

Merry Christmas and Happy Festivus!

1. Luckily, I never carry cash. ↩︎
2. I still have no earthly clue how my wallet ended up in the junk drawer. ↩︎
3. Payton made a compelling case for a young named Haley from Texas to be the ire of all of grievances. Meanwhile, mine were largely directed at the cats who live in our house.  ↩︎

You can air your grievances with Nate Graziano any time at ngrazio5@yahoo.com.