A Christmas the Grinch Can't Steal
How to survive the annual onslaught of holiday chaos.
Reposting an updated version of this article from my personal archives. This will likely be my last post until after the holiday, but I have several things in the works and will have more to share soon. Merry Christmas everyone!1
Good Grief
Years ago, our church participated in something called Advent Conspiracy, an initiative that encouraged us to rethink modern approaches to Christmas while refocusing our attention on Christ and giving back. The basic principles were sound enough: worship fully, love all, spend less, give more. “Make Christmas Meaningful Again,” the promotional video opined. But as we watched the pre-prepared videos on Sundays, as we heard sermons reminding us of the importance of giving to those less fortunate, I found myself experiencing it all with a kind of detached ambivalence. Looking back on it now, in classic Charlie Brown fashion, I think I mostly just felt hopeless.
I don’t believe anyone wants to be ostentatious, wasteful and selfish at Christmas, not for its own sake anyway. If anything, I think we make peace with being ostentatious, wasteful and selfish because it feels like an inevitability, that there’s no getting around it. After all, Christmas is almost here, there’s so much to be done, and we’re probably already behind as it is.2
These days, as a parent of two small children, I’m coordinating family plans with my parents and siblings, trying to plan out gifts for everyone, debating whether this is the year we have enough money to spend on Christmas decorations, finishing year-end projects at work, rushing to stay current on my Christmas devotional, trying not to get sick…and fighting to do it all with a smile. All the while, guilt stalks me around every corner, reminding me just as my head hits the pillow how I could have done more around the house, made Christmas more magical for the girls, been a bit more responsible with money, led more boldly as a husband and a father. It's enough to make even the most well-intentioned aspiring Clark Griswold among us shake his head dismally and let out a dispirited “good grief.”
I imagine you've felt this same hopelessness threaten to rob you of joy around the holidays. And today, I find myself once again wondering: how can we ever hope to celebrate Christmas when Christmas keeps getting in the way?
Any time Jesus wanted to convey a truth about how to live, he told a story. He knew the best way to teach us about life was to speak in terms of things we already knew, like construction or gardening. Whether it’s a story we’ve heard many times before or a brand new adventure, stories have the power to draw us in and challenge our assumptions about what we believe is possible. So in order to combat the unending bleakness of holiday fatigue, I think a story may be exactly what we need.
So in the true spirit of Christmas: come gather ‘round, children. Let me tell you a story.
The Fire of Christmas
It's one of my favorite Christmas stories, one I still read to my children every year: "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," by Dr. Seuss. It's a simple story that asks a simple question: what happens when you strip Christmas down to its studs? What are you left with?3
You know it by now: the mean, old Grinch steals all the presents in Whoville on Christmas night, only to find them singing together on Christmas morning, "without any presents at all!" This baffles the Grinch. And at first, it ought to baffle you, too. The Grinch has genuinely ruined everything, taking anything remotely connected to Christmas: "all the ribbons, the wrappings, the trimmings, the trappings." No presents. No food. No magic. It's all gone. Yet the Whos wake up singing, joyful as ever.
Why? What's left to sing about? “Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,” joins hands and sings the one truth of Christmas together, the one truth that endures regardless of circumstance. Which begs the question: what exactly were they singing?
I think we can safely say it didn’t have anything to do with chestnuts roasting, sleigh bells or shopping sprees. And it definitely wasn’t “dahoo dores, dahoo dores,” I’m sure of that. Why? Because if all you have to sing about on Christmas is presents, decorations, and the "Christmas spirit," you have a Christmas the Grinch can steal.
Presents will eventually be disposed of. Traditions will die out. Even our loved ones may not always be there to celebrate with us. In order for Christmas to produce joyful singing all by itself, has to be about something bigger than presents, bigger than traditions, bigger even than our loved ones.
Which is why I'm inclined to think the Whos were singing something you and I might recognize.
O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem
Come and behold Him,
Born the King of angels
O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
That, friends, is a Christmas the Grinch can't steal. It is the truth that keeps the fire of Christmas burning: that hope doesn't come from a department store. That the King has come, in the most unlikely fashion. And there's a rumor going around that He's going to change everything.
When we refocus our lives to make Christ the Lord of Christmas, everything else falls in its place.
Pregnant With Hope
Like Martha, you and I are worried about many things: "all the ribbons, the wrappings, the trimmings, the trappings." We can't begin to think about slowing down because how will anything get done if we don't work like crazy to do it ourselves? But I can promise you this: until we make Christ the Lord of our Calendar, Lord of our Checklist and Lord of our Wallet, you and I will always rest dissatisfied. We will lose ourselves engaging in the silliest parts of Christmas, while somehow missing the incarnate newborn King whose coming is the sole reason we celebrate at all. This was never God’s intention for us.
So stop for a minute today. Renounce the obsessing over your to-do list. Always, always remember to sing. Spend time in the presence of God instead of browsing endlessly online. Read a liturgy together while you’re gathered around the dinner table. Pray for a friend who’s struggling. As you prepare your home to welcome friends and family, make sure you prepare room in your heart for Christ, too.
Just as Mary waited expectantly, literally pregnant with hope, for the Lord to arrive in her midst, so you and I are called to carry that same hope in our hearts as we await the coming of our King this Christmas. Yes, there are temptations and obligations and tasks to complete. But don’t let your joy revolve around them. Make room for Christ each and every day, and watch Christmas become what it was always meant to be: a proclamation that God has come near at last, and nothing will ever be the same.
As for the contents of this essay, I am forever indebted to my teacher Phil Cary for making Dr. Seuss come alive for me in such an unexpected way. The best parts of every Dr. Cary class were always his impassioned soapbox tangents, which he has since collected in his book "Good News for Anxious Christians." It remains a great read and conversation-starter, even many years after its initial publication.
Going back to my previous article: In a way, both “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “How the Grinch Sole Christmas” are themselves meditations on the terrors of “the Machine,” and offer approaches on how to escape the endless cycle of commercial consumption. Perhaps this contributes to the enduring nature of both stories this time of year. Would’ve loved to have written more on this had time allowed for it…maybe next year.
Fun fact: Dr. Seuss, born Theodore S. Geisel in 1904, published “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” in 1957. At the beginning of the story, the Grinch remarks “for 53 years I’ve put up with it now!” So do the math: who is the Grinch?
A pleasure to read and contemplate. May God bless you and yours this Christmas! May you be free enough of earthly things to adore Him!
Never did the math. Fun fact. Thank you.