Today is Festivus Eve and the day of complaining is nigh.  Are you ready to sing out your grumbles? If you are Frank Costanza the Airing of Grievances normally begins with Festivus dinner.  However, many people let their grievances fly all day long.  Why not?

People normally complain when their dissatisfaction reaches some sort of critical threshold.  Telling others of your complaints is seen as a possible means to reduce the problem, and it can serve as a cathartic method to cleanse people of the evils of dissatisfaction. With Festivus you are encouraged to complain in the Airing of Grievances, essentially ferreting out your bad feelings in an orgasm of griping.

Frank is correct in his assertion that you should air grievances with your family.  After all, who is more worthy of your gripes than those you are closest to?  However, on this special day of complaining, we shouldn’t forget the others that make our lives so special… public figures, politicians, neighbors, co-workers and everybody’s favorite… other drivers.

We have a page for Airing Grievances here on this website.  You can be anonymous or not.  Read the rules on the page for more information.

In addition, “Festivus! The Book” has an entire chapter dedicated to the Airing of Grievances.  The author has included some useful tips, and it even includes ideas submitted by other people during the 2014 Festivus Survey.    Here is an excerpt from the section of the book which gives examples of how others air grievances with their family:

• We “aye” or “nay” each grievance and argue about the worthiness and validity of the complaint.
• Grievances are light-hearted followed by a gag gift after each grievance.
• We hand out lemons with grievances and then take the lemons the next day and make lemonade. “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!

So air those grievances!  It will lessen your load, and if you do it right it will be both fun and liberating. To get you started here are some of our favorite FestivusWeb.com grievances from the past year:

• I have problems with people who sing while they’re working. Do you really think that I come to my office every day to listen to your off-key tunes?
• To the guy at work who spends 75% of his day in the crapper, enough!
• They can TAKE the reservations, but they can’t KEEP the reservations.
• People who boast how wonderful their lives are on Facebook, when I know they are miserable.
• My friends made fun of my damn meatloaf.
• I don’t like whiners… Oh wait.