12 Days of Cinematic Christmas #10: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)

Directed by Chuck Jones. Written by Dr. Seuss. Voiced by Boris Karloff.

There’s an essential trio of Christmas character transformations that have warmed our hearts for decades. First, there’s George Bailey, a fundamentally good man who needs his perspective on life changed through Angelic assistance. Second, Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is a covetous old sinner, a warped man who has lost any sense of joy, love, or value outside of himself and his money. Unlike George Bailey, Scrooge truly is evil, but it’s an evil which has grown over time, slowly changing Scrooge from a good man into a bad one. By travelling back in time and reminding Scrooge who he once was, showing him who he is now, and warning him of where he is almost certain to end up without some change, three spirits help Scrooge to reverse that evil transformation and keep Christmas in his heart all the year long.

And then we have the Grinch. Twice imitated (first in a flawed and ugly but bizarrely admirable way by Ron Howard and again in a soulless corporate snoozefest by Illumination) but never surpassed, Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones’ original How the Grinch Stole Christmas holiday special presents us with a thoroughly and chaotically evil personage who simply hates Christmas. There’s no deeper reason, no tragic backstory to explain why the Grinch is so Grinchy; the best explanation is that he is actually biologically predisposed to be evil. How could this Grinch possibly undergo the same transformation to goodness and charity that we know and love in the other two?

First, we must admit that all of the Grinch’s complaints about Christmas in the first act are completely valid. He looks at Christmas and what does he see? Crass materialism. Gross consumption. Gluttony, greed, over-indulgence, and noise, noise, noise, NOISE! The Grinch looks down from his high mountaintop and passes judgement over the Whos, condemning them for many of the sins we might agree have polluted American Christmas. Granted, he condemns them mostly because they are personally annoying to him; he is evil, after all, and not a neutral observer impartially judging their morality. But in this way, I think the Grinch is quite the sympathetic character. After all, who among us has not complained about the neighbor putting up that 15 foot tall Frosty blow-up thing the day after Thanksgiving? Who hasn’t wished Christmas was less about toys and more about Christ, joy, peace, and love? Who isn’t exhausted by the end of Christmas, especially if they spend it near young children?

The Grinch (and, my dear reader, you and I) have all had our idea of Christmas corrupted by its accidents, though hopefully we aren’t as far gone as old Grinchy Claus is. Just as supernatural assistance was required for George Bailey and Ebenezer Scrooge to complete their Christmas transformations, so too it is needed for the Grinch and for us ourselves. After the Grinch has wrapped up all the trappings of Christmas, the toys and the food and the lights and the presents and everything that seems like Christmas, he is shocked to discover that none of that is the essence of Christmas. We can strip away all the trimmings and trappings OR we can add and add and add more and more and more to it, but we cannot change or take away what Christmas is. It is impossible to understand or discover what this is by our own effort, or to build Christmas for ourselves, or to take it away and destroy it. Rather, we must experience the supernatural joy and wonder of dah-who doris; and after we puzzle and puzzle til our puzzler is sore, perhaps we will get the supernatural revelation all the noise has, until now, drowned out.

Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store.

Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.