Festivus is a present for a pole company

MILWAUKEE — Kevin Campanella hates buying and receiving Christmas presents that he says inevitably disappoint. This year, no such worries.

Campanella plans to seek "serenity now" by celebrating Festivus, a wacky holiday popularized in a 1997 "Seinfeld" episode. Billed as "Festivus for the rest of us," the holiday celebrated by the show's Costanza clan on Dec. 23 features an airing of grievances and feats of strength in which a guest must pin the host before the party ends.

In protest of Christmas' commercialism, character Frank Costanza, George's father, puts up an unadorned aluminum pole instead of a tree.

"I just always loved that episode," said Campanella, 28, a landscaper from Warwick, R.I. "But it's not so much about the show — I think the idea of Festivus is a good idea."

So does The Wagner Cos. The Milwaukee-based maker of hand-railing components is bringing back its line of Festivus poles for the holiday season. The company had plenty of metal rails on hand already and launched the product last year on a whim.

"We did it mainly as a lark. We never looked at it as a tremendous moneymaking scheme," said Tony Leto, the firm's executive vice president of sales and marketing. "But in many ways, Festivus is taking on a life of its own."

Wagner, which made $15 million last year from products including handrail brackets and pipe elbows, earned only a few thousand from Festivus pole sales.

Leto said the company got some publicity over the poles but he credits bloggers with strong "Seinfeld" loyalties for spreading the news.

Wagner sold about 250 poles in 2005, with around 100 going to the firm's 120 employees. This season, it sold about 300 poles by mid-December, said Leto, who shared a drama class with Jerry Seinfeld in New York.

Wagner offers a 6-foot Festivus pole for $38 and a 2-foot-8-inch tabletop model for $30. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a "Seinfeld" fanatic, displayed one of the company's poles last year at the governor's mansion.

But Doyle said he will donate the pole to the Wisconsin Historical Museum after reports that "Seinfeld" co-star Michael Richards used racial slurs during a standup comedy routine last month.

Leto said he hoped the Richards incident won't hurt sales.

"Fans know it was a Costanza holiday, not a Kramer holiday," he said, referring to characters Frank Costanza, played by Jerry Stiller, and Cosmo Kramer, played by Richards.

The "Seinfeld" Festivus episode developed from series writer Dan O'Keefe's childhood experiences. His father invented the holiday in the 1960s.

"As a kid, we'd come home and there'd be weird decorations," O'Keefe said. "There was the playing of strange German and Italian pop music from the '50s. And the airing of grievances was a real thing."

Wagner's Leto acknowledged the irony of making money off a holiday that celebrates anti-commercialism. But O'Keefe doesn't begrudge Wagner's commercial efforts.

"If they want to make a buck on it, go for it," O'Keefe said.

Or, as Seinfeld might say, "... not that there's anything wrong with that."