Chaz Stevens, Florida blogger, attempts to make statement with ‘Beer can Festivus pole’ as Nativity Scene
A Festivus pole made of beer cans joins a South Florida nativity scene as a blogger tries to make a “statement.”
Deerfield Beach activist blogger Chaz Stevens wanted to express his nonreligious beliefs, so he cited his adherence to the made-up holiday celebrated on a famous episode of the 1990s sitcom “Seinfeld,” the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports.
The Seinfield episode features the “Festivus for the rest of us!,” created by the character Frank Costanza, who puts up the totem of the holiday, an unadorned aluminum pole, in protest of Christmas’ commercialism.
Stevens sought permission from the city, assembled a pole made of 23 beer cans, and placed the pole six feet from the Nativity scene.
“Think of how many people have died over the years to give us our freedoms,” Stevens told the Sun Sentinel newspaper. “So I’ve got to push back a little.”
“How to make a statement, without actually making one, was the task at hand,” Stevens told The Daily Caller in an email. “And it was during my research that I came across a video by Allen Salkin (former NYT reporter and author of “Festivus: The Holiday For the Rest of Us”).”
One key ritual of Festivus is accusing others of being a disappointment, known as an airing of grievances.
[…] FL, asserted his religious freedom with the city’s permission, and expressed himself by erecting a pole made of beer cans. The pole, erected just six feet from the nativity scene, stands as an atheist alternate to the […]