“Grinches” known to walk the high school hallways

Even though the LHS hallways are filled with joy this month, not all staff and students find the holiday season a wonderful time. In fact, a few of them fall into the category of a grinch.

The Grinch is a fictional character, first seen in Dr. Suess’ book How the Grinch Stole Christmas and then later adapted into multiple movies. One of the most commonly referenced films is from 2000, starring Jim Carrey.

The entertaining film tells the story of a grumpy green man, the Grinch, and his dog. The two live on the outskirts of Whoville. The goal of the Grinch is to ruin Christmas for the Whos. However, at the end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT), the Grinch finds joy in Christmas and helps the Whos to restore what he once ruined, as explained on IMBD.com.

To understand what it takes to be a grinch, one must begin by celebrating Christmas. This may seem ironic, but if one does not celebrate a holiday, then no opinion of hate or love can be formed based upon the holiday. Continuing, the word “grinch” is hard to define precisely, but the Merriam-Webster Dictionary does a fantastic job at it. A grinch defined is a grumpy person who spoils the pleasure of others.

Many self-defined or unknowing grinches roam the school day after day. A few of these people are our beloved teachers.
   
One of the science teachers, Kristen Delp, is usually a delightful person, but she happens to be a low-key grinch during the holiday season.
  
“Absolutely no Christmas music before Thanksgiving. But I have low-key watched a few Christmas movies,“ said Delp.
   
Although Delp has dabbled with a few Christmas films, her dislike for Christmas music as early as November puts her on the list of grinches. If it weren’t for her dislike of the catchy Christmas tunes, Delp would be classified as Cindy Lou Who.
 
Cindy Lou Who is the protagonist of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, while the Grinch is the antagonist. She is defined as joyful and has a very kind heart according to thegrinchiah.weebly.com. A Cindy Lou Who is somebody who embraces the true meaning of Christmas. The true meaning of Christmas varies; however, it all ties back to the joy of the holiday.
  
Another one of our school grinches is Mike Jones. Jones explained how he is a reformed grinch.

“Instead of kids getting what they wanted and being happy, I saw the kids that didn›t get what they wanted and were sad,” Jones said. “I was really down on Christmas for a long, long time, simply because of its commercialization, its lack of true meaning.” 

But his outlook changed when he had kids of his own. 

“I realized that I got to redo my childhood basically through my kids. We got to develop traditions of our own,“ said Jones.

Jones is a wonderful example of the Grinch in the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Grinch is a mean one for the majority of the film, leading up to the holiday of Christmas. After Cindy Lou Who helps the Grinch see the best of Christmas, he then changes his mind and enjoys Christmas after all. If Jones is the Grinch, then his daughters are his Cindy Lou Whos.

Math teacher, Dave Cornelia, acts like a grinch out of love. 

“It’s hard not to be a grinch when my wife goes overboard… It is mostly the number of gifts she wants to buy our kids,” Cornelia said.  “Part of my grinch is — some of it’s an act. I’ve got to tease her, because if I agree with her with everything, I wouldn’t have any money.” 

The list of grinches is not narrowed down to teachers only. Senior, Evan Potter, indeed has pronounced himself as a grinch.

“I hate all the (Christmas) movies. Any romantic Christmas movies — I want to punch them in the face,“ said Potter.

While Potter has strong feelings about the entertainment surrounding Christmas, he has one holiday weakness. 

“I like sitting around with people and drinking eggnog,“ he admitted.

For Potter, if there were no saving grace for surviving this holiday, life would be miserable, although eggnog is the one thing that keeps him going.