Stolen Again

Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot.

But the Grinch who lived just North of Whoville did not!

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!

Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.

― Dr. Seuss, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"

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Dear Kate,

Last night before heading out to pick up my son from work, I had about half an hour in my head, enough to break a few world records, too little to sink myself deeper into the thought I had been having, so I turned on the TV to watch what I knew I could turn off at any moment without turning green: The Grinch.

It's a warmed-over piece of poo from a vegetarian diet.

Why do we keep re-traditioning stories about mean (and usually old) men (no protest of gender bias?) who hated Christmas?  There must be a reason we need to go on warning ourselves about the perils of living the life of Ebenezer Scrooge and his many soulless reincarnations.

The reason is clear: that it is reasonable to hate Christmas.  The mere first 15 mins of bunkum (a sound word Dr. Seuss would have loved) I suffered last night confirmed my avocado-colored suspicion: that Christmas is the most hateable season of all.

Theodor Geisel, the writer of the Grinch, the real "Dr. Seuss," was one of the most well-known child entertainers.  Yet he himself never had any kids.  "You make 'em," he once remarked when asked by reporters, "I amuse 'em." He was not comfortable with children. "In mass, they terrify me."

It shows in his works.  There is no good news in his gospel.  The Grinch hates Christmas to the end and shall hate it more by next December, despite what's on paper.

The irony of such dubious gospel lies in that the Grinch is not hateful enough a character to personify evil for the readers to imagine, to long for a robust vision of hope.  When human nature is sugarcoated, whatever joy there might be is necessarily frivolous.

In the news we get enough of the politics of exaltation, heaven-on-earth pronounced prematurely and often in language with no restraint: "light at the end of the tunnel," "turning the corner," vaccine hopes.  Why are we being lied to again even in our fantasy?

We all know life's "tunnel" goes on, pandemic or not, that we are vulnerable to who-knows-what lurking around every next corner, that there is no vaccination against death or despair.  How then do we live with hope, even exuberant joy, in face of all the reasons to be despondent?

I imagine a family, like the one depicted in the movie, a single mother with three little ones, walking out of the theatre after the show, sugar-high, Christmas-stoned, back into the shopping mall, down to the parking lot, mommy now trying to start the car but it wouldn't.  Mom buries her face on the steering wheel, sobbing.  

The three little ones don't know why.

Yours, Alex