It’s that time of year, when we traditionally celebrate cold-hearted misers like Ebenezer Scrooge, and Scrooge McDuck.
Not exactly heroes of mine… although I can identify with them.
I’m certainly not claiming that I’m a wealthy miser, but I have been know to mutter, “Bah, humbug!” on more than a few occasions.
And then we have Dr. Seuss’ Grinch.
Not exactly a hero of mine, either. But of the three, I think I admire the Grinch most of all.
Scrooge McDuck and Ebenezer Scrooge were rather selfish characters. They collected their corporate profits from the poor working folks, with exorbitant rents, high-interest loans, and overpriced retail goods… and they stashed the money away in their safes, locked up and secure. But did their money really do them any good? Doesn’t seem like it.
Sure, they had fancy fur coats to wear out in the freezing weather, and well-oiled boots of Spanish leather… while the poor children out in the street couldn’t even afford shoes, and wrapped their feet in rags.
But what did their money buy them, really? Not happiness.
The Grinch, on the other hand, had a very different motivation. He looked down from his modest mountain abode, on Christmas Eve….at the Whos in Who-ville… and saw the very same thing we see, here in America-ville.
A wonderful holiday, transformed into a disgusting orgy of consumerism.
He saw the whole scene, spread out below, in living color. The whole hateful scene.
For, tomorrow, he knew…
All the Who girls and boys would wake bright and early. They’d rush for their toys!
And then, oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise!
That’s one thing he hated! The NOISE, NOISE, NOISE, NOISE!
But it wasn’t just the noise he hated. He hated the excessive feasting — on rare Who-roast-beast — and he hated the endless off-key singing. (The TV special made the Whos sound like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but we know better.)
Deep down, I suspect we all hate Christmas music. Except maybe “I’ll Have a Blue Christmas” and “Hard Candy Christmas”. (I imagine the Grinch hated even those two songs.)
Mostly, though, the Grinch hated the consumerist culture. The petroleum-based plastic that was going to eventually wind up in the oceans as deadly micro-plastics and last for 10,000 years. The electronics assembled by Chinese slaves, packed with minerals mined by Congolese children breathing cobalt fumes. The ugly sweaters. The Christmas stockings leaden with diabetes-causing fructose-based candy. The credit-card debt.
He tried to put a stop to it. He really tried.
He got all the way to the top of Mt. Crumpit with all the consumerist Who-ville trash, to dump it.
He was so close. But he stopped, because he wanted to hear the Whos in Who-ville all cry “BOO-HOO!” He put his hand to his ear.
“That’s a noise,” said the Grinch
“That I simply must hear!”
The sound he heard, unfortunately, wasn’t sad. It was merry. Very merry. The Whos were all singing, in four-part harmony, in spite of his criminal attempt to keep Christmas from coming.
He was so close. If he’d only given his sleigh that final push… over the cliff… we’d be living in a very different world today.
But Dr. Seuss couldn’t see his way to fixing a spoiled celebration. He allowed the Grinch to bring everything back to Who-ville… all the noise, and plastic, and ugly sweaters. He allowed the the return of the tinsel and trappings. He allowed the feast.
And he… he himself…
The Grinch carved the roast beast.
Ah, but the beast lives on…
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.