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O'Keefe family practices
The O'Keefe family holiday featured other practices, as detailed in The Real Festivus (2005), a book by Daniel O'Keefe's son, Dan O'Keefe. Besides providing a first-person account of the early version of the Festivus holiday as celebrated by the O'Keefe family, the book relates how Dan O'Keefe amended or replaced details of his father's invention to create the Seinfeld episode.

Origin
As Dan O'Keefe explains in The Real Festivus, the first instance of the holiday was a celebration by his newly-married parents of the anniversary of their first date. The holiday originally consisted of looking at wedding photos and drinking champagne. The name Festivus was soon used to describe this anniversary by 1966, however, the celebrations soon died off as Dan and his siblings were born. In 1972, Daniel O'Keefe began recording his children's conversations with a tape recorder. Recording these conversations reminded Daniel of Krapp's Last Tape, a play by Samuel Beckett which he had lent a copy of to his wife on their first date. This ultimately reminded him of the Festivus celebrations him and his wife used to enjoy, prompting Daniel to bring the holiday back, but this time incorporating his children into it.

In 1975, the first official O'Keefe family Festivus occurred. It consisted of a turkey dinner, looking at family photos, and finally Daniel recording his children talk about the past year onto a tape to be listened to next Festivus.

Rituals and practices
Besides listening to previous Festivus tapes and recording new ones, the O'Keefes had many other Festivus traditions. The actual date of Festivus changed every year, usually taking place some time between September and May. Every celebration began with the reading of the "Poem of Festivus." During the dinner by candlelight, the family would eat and converse as well as mold Play-Doh that was placed in pots by each person's table setting. After the meal, Dan's mother would declare who molded the best Play-Doh sculpture before moving to their living room to listen to and record new Festivus tapes, each usually with their own theme.

Festivus clock
In a 2013 CNN segment on the origins of Festivus, O'Keefe spoke about the real-life experiences related to the holiday. O'Keefe's father, who originated some of the now-recognized Festivus traditions, used a clock in a bag nailed to a wall, not an aluminum pole. It was never the same bag, rarely the same clock, but always the same wall. The nailing was most often done in secret, and then revealed proudly to his family. The younger O'Keefe told CNN: "The real symbol of the holiday was a clock that my dad put in a bag and nailed to the wall every year...I don't know why, I don't know what it means, he would never tell me. He would always say, 'That's not for you to know.'"

Other decorations
Besides the Festivus clock and bag, there were many other decorations used in the celebrations. Before the Festivus dinner, the O'Keefes changed into nicer clothes, which included wearing hats constructed out of various household items. A piece of cardboard with the words "Fuck Fascism!" (sometimes the less offensive "Screw Fascism!") written on it was often placed on the mantelpiece. Daniel O'Keefe would also hang an American flag on the porch of his home during the festivities.