Christmas – Page 4 – Pain In The Bud

Happy Festivus! For The Rest Of Us!

2020: The first Festivus without Jerry Stiller.

Happy Festivus, everyone!

Festivus is a holiday celebrated “as an alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season.”

The holiday’s traditions include a Festivus pole, which must not be decorated (“I find tinsel distracting,” Festivus creator Frank Costanza explains), a Festivus dinner which typically includes family and friends, an Airing of Grievances and the Feats of Strength. The Airing of Grievances (Buddy’s favorite part) is an after-dinner tradition in which participants go around the table and tell everyone else how disappointing they’ve been all year, while the Feats of Strength signals the end of the holiday if younger members of the family are able to pin the family patriarch.

Because 2020 has been such a lousy year, many people likely forgot we lost Jerry Stiller this year. Stiller famously played Frank Costanza on Seinfeld, arguably the most well-known of the many roles the 93-year-old actor took on during his long career.

It may be a small mercy, in a way, since Stiller didn’t have to witness the first socially-distanced Festivus and holiday season as the Coronavirus rages across the US this winter. (Contrary to some clown’s vandalism on Wikipedia, Stiller died of natural causes, not COVID-19.)

In the real world, Festivus was created in 1966 by the writer Daniel O’Keefe. The holiday wasn’t popularly celebrated until 1997 when O’Keefe’s son, then a writer for Seinfeld, included the now-beloved holiday in an episode of the show.

Over the next two-plus decades, Festivus has become a “real” holiday, with many people marking the occasion by getting together with friends.

Modern Box Magazine: December 2020!

Modern Box: The magazine for discerning felines.

Modern Box Monthly’s December issue will hit newsstands today, with editor-in-chief Buddy promising a boxstravaganza for our loyal readers! Plus: Investigative Eater Tux digs in to new yums, while our box reviewers preview the boxes your humans’ likely presents will come in! ‘Tis the season for boxes!

Buddy’s Letter To Santa Claws: A Very Roomba Christmas

Buddy only wants one thing this Christmas.

Dear Santa Claws,

Hi, this is Buddy the Good Boy from New York!

Please help me, Santa! For the past four years I’ve been asking my Big Buddy for a Roomba for Christmas, and every Christmas morning I have been disappointed when there is no Roomba beneath the tree. 😦

What is a Roomba? I’m glad you asked! A Roomba is a round robot made for cats, so we can have fun riding around the house! You just sit on top of it, and it moves all over the place! There are lots of videos on the MewTube showing cats having fun on their Roombas.

I am such a good boy. I finish my food most of the time, I only scratch the couch a little bit, and I haven’t destroyed anything valuable in almost three months! And if Big Buddy told you about the time I puked on ~~his~~ my bed, well that was an accident, okay? I usually puke on the carpet like a civilized cat.

Please, Santa, the only thing I want this year is a Roomba!

Your friend,

Buddy

PS: Look at how much fun it is!

Merry Christmas from Buddy!

Buddy saved up his profits from dealing catnip and got me a touching gift for Christmas.

Little Buddy got a great gift for me this Christmas:

The text reads:

Dear Cat Dad,

Thank you for being my dad. If some other man was my dad, I’d piss on his shoes, claw up his face, and go find you.

Love,

Bud

Such a heartwarming message! It brings a tear to my eye. (Although I’ll have to talk to Buddy about his punctuation. We don’t use the Oxford comma in this house.)

Like any proud parent whose kid takes up a paper route or an after school job and buys presents with his own money for the first time, I beam with joy knowing Buddy sold enough catnip to neighborhood kitties to buy this mug for me. My little one is growing up!

1495125423076 — So proud of my good boy!

The Bronx Zoo: Winter Wonderland

A trip to the Bronx Zoo’s annual after-dark holiday exhibit.

Every Christmas, the staff at the Bronx Zoo transform the grounds into a “winter wonderland,” an LED-illuminated forest of festive fun that begins at sundown.

The good: Young kids will enjoy themselves. The bad: All the animal exhibits are closed, with the tigers, bears, monkeys and elephants brought into their indoor enclosures before dark to shelter from the frigid New York winter.

On Friday night the only animal on duty was Quincy, a 16-year-old Eurasian eagle owl. The impressively-plumed Quincy gamely hung out and remained calm despite a small crowd of guests pointing cameras at him, occasionally repeating a vocalization that sounded more like Buddy’s high-pitched greeting than a call you’d expect from an owl.

Hooting, which is what most of us associate with the nocturnal birds, is more closely associated with territorial displays and mating calls, Quincy’s handler explained.

Bronx Zoo's Quincy — Quincy, a Eurasian eagle owl, wasn’t phased by crowds as he greeted guests at the Bronx Zoo’s Winter Wonderland. Photo: Pain In The Bud

Bronx Zoo Frozen castle — Visitors can watch artists chisel ice sculptures. Photo: Pain In The Bud

Bronx Zoo Winter Wonderland — Under the (very cold) sea. Photo: Pain In The Bud

Bronx Zoo Birds of Paradise — Birds of Paradise. Photo: Pain In The Bud

After taking my brother’s kids to Winter Wonderland, we stopped for a look at Roy’s Christmas Land in Harrison, NY. The owner, 61-year-old Roy Aletti, describes himself as a “maniac” when it comes to holiday decorating.

As you can see, his design philosophy can be summed up as “Buy as much shit as you can and cover every inch of your lawn.” The kids love it.