The Grinch



"''"Every Who down in Who-ville ''Liked Christmas a lot, ''But the Grinch, ''Who lived just north of Who-ville, Did NOT!""

- How the Grinch Stole Christmas

There seems to be no shortage of things to like about Christmas: presents, family, at the very least a little time off. Who could possibly hate this most hallowed of holidays?

The Grinch, that's who. He hates Christmas and he'll keep kicking (Christmas themed) dogs until everyone knows it. Most of the time when specials reveal why they hate Christmas, it's often something petty like never gotten the gift they wanted, or something downright tragic.

Though occasionally Truth in Television, Grinches are primarily found in Christmas Specials, especially the innumerable retellings of A Christmas Carol. Regardless of his role as protagonist or antagonist, you can bet the Grinch will change his ways when the The Power of Friendship throws out An Aesop that teaches him 'the true spirit of Christmas'.

In a more general sense, the Grinch is any character who is utterly disgusted with something (or many things) that everyone else likes, and whose alienation drives him to be so completely unhappy that he finally decides to spread the misery around.

Real Life versions will often be fond of Anti-Christmas Songs.

Anime and Manga

 * In the anime-only Christmas episode of Mamotte Shugogetten, Shao becomes an unintentional Grinch by locking Tasuke in his house and (violently) preventing anyone from coming in.

Comic Books

 * The Joker takes on the role of the Grinch in The Long Halloween; complete with his own version of the poem.
 * Larfleeze once went on a rampage against Mall Santas and tried to melt the North Pole after he waited all Christmas Eve. After Hal Jordan convinces him that the spirit of Christmas was about giving, Larfleeze decided that he hated the Christmas spirit. Of course,

Film

 * Frank from Scrooged, which is just another take on A Christmas Carol
 * Subverted in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, where Voldar and his minions just end up being arrested.

Literature

 * Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol is the Trope Codifier.
 * The Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas is the Trope Namer. He learns the True Meaning of Christmas when his heart suddenly grows three sizes.
 * The White Witch from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe who plunges Narnia into an eternal winter where it is 'always Winter, but never Christmas'. The arrival of Christmas is one of the first signs that her power is faltering.
 * A tie-in storybook based on the film Cars called "Mater Saves Christmas" has Chick Hicks play the Grinch character (he's even painted green!).

Live Action TV

 * The first Christmas special made by Jim Henson, The Great Santa Claus Switch, has Cosmo Scam, a sorcerer who kidnaps Santa to take his place and steal from every home around the world.
 * Oscar the Grouch dislikes the holiday so much, he's willing to sing about how he hates it.
 * I don't like bambastoodles, I loathe dinklewallows, I hate snagtomgoppers, I say, do you follow?
 * Kazran Sardick from the Doctor Who 2010 Christmas Episode, "A Christmas Carol".
 * Sue Sylvester, quite literally, in the Glee Christmas episode.
 * The eponymous character of Monk hated the Christmas season, although he had a very sympathetic reason for doing so, as it was around that time of year that Trudy, his wife and pretty much the only person who ever had him see the positives of Christmas, was murdered via Car Bomb, and his early experiences with Christmas were admittedly quite horrible (for instance, in 1964, his mother fell ill, his dad was what he usually was, and Ambrose Monk locked himself in the basement for the whole Christmas season [Monk implies by saying "he was no fool" that Ambrose did this deliberately], and he himself received only one walkie talkie out of a set, which his dad explained that he gave the gift to him because he only ever needed one because he didn't really have any friends).
 * Britta on Community makes a series of rather smug and snide dismissals of the trappings of the festive season, such as Christmas songs, see her come off as a bit of a killjoy. Curiously, in the Christmas episode in season 1 ("Comparative Religion") she came off as a lot more easy-going about it.

Newspaper Comics

 * In the Garfield strip seen here, Jon gets a Christmas card from the Homeowners' Association with a fine for $75 due to his ugly lawn Santa.

Video Games

 * In Guild Wars Wintersday celebrations, Grenth and his followers work to spoil the holiday for everyone else. There are a pair of Shout Outs to the Trope Namer: Grenth has minions called Grentches, and one Dwayna-supporting quest is called "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grenth."
 * "Operation Claws", a non-canon scenario for StarCraft, is about the evil Zergrinch holding Santa Claws hostage on Planet Christmas because he never brings presents to the zerg.
 * The protagonists and supporting characters of Garden Gnome Carnage and Hyper Princess Pitch hate Christmas. For the latter game it's explained that none of them got any presents as kids/kits, and Pitch herself is heavily implied to have spent all her life on the "naughty" list.
 * In DC Universe Online, Larfleeze stole a bunch of Christmas presents, which Hal Jordan tasks the players with recovering.

Web Comics
"Roz Poodle: She wouldn't DARE ban my handcrafted singing Santa cookie jar! Ben Bruin: Are you kidding? She'd ban snow if it didn't fall fall out of the sky on a regular basis."
 * In Goblin Hollow, as told by Ben Bruin's buddy Fred, about a Wiccan employee, who even used the Pointy-Haired Boss as leverage, to stop the store and the employees that work there from celebrating Christmas because it offended her.


 * Third Character from Jayden and Crusader hates Christmas. He starts off by attacking Christmas carollers and it only gets worse.

Web Original

 * Ghost does not like Christmas at all, but in typical Ghost fashion, still rages when people compare him to the actual Grinch.
 * The Nostalgia Chick's already Black Comedy gets pitch-dark over Christmas, and giving a lottery ticket to Todd only makes her realize that the true meaning of the holiday is rampant materialism. Bonus for her also being The Scrooge.

Western Animation

 * Quillgin, the villain of Regular Show's Christmas Special's goal is "to destroy christmas forever". However one could make the case he doesn't really care about Christmas itself and only wants to destroy it as a way of hurting Santa.
 * Olive the Other Reindeer: The Postman.
 * Professor Hinkel, the magician who wants to steal his hat back from Frosty the Snowman.
 * The 90's cartoon X-Men had a Christmas Episode where Wolverine took on this role.
 * Bowser Koopa, Mario's nemesis, is this kind of character in the Super Mario Bros Super Show Christmas Episode. He doesn't reform at the end, though oddly in the later Super Mario World Christmas episode, he doesn't seem to hate the holiday as much (although he does rip off the Trope Namer).
 * Dr. Doofenshmirtz in Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation is a subversion. He admits (via musical number) that he really doesn't hate Christmas; despite having a Freudian Excuse for practically everything, Doofenshmirtz is at worst, apathetic about Christmas and in fact wishes he did have a good reason to try and ruin Christmas. He only built a device to destroy it because he received the kit for it in the mail.
 * Bushroot in the Darkwing Duck Christmas episode. His motivation for being a Grinch, though, is that he has great difficulty doing his Christmas shopping and swears to make everyone else feel his pain.
 * Herman the Hermit and Snively in Yogi's First Christmas.
 * Charlie Brown's teacher definitely qualifies for making him read War and Peace during Christmas vacation.
 * The Simpsons
 * Homer stole gifts in "'Tis the Fiftheenth Season" accompanied by a variation of the Grinch song. The twist is that Homer believed he was doing a good thing by getting rid of excess materialism, which would allow people to have a more emotionally meaningful holiday. Not surprisingly, it just pissed people off.
 * The Simpsons family also attempted to steal some Funzos before Christmas Day. Subverted in that they actually had a very good reason for doing so, as apparently the toy company that created Funzo also programmed it to destroy any and all toys that are not part of its own line, meaning allowing them to survive would have made Christmas worse.
 * Mr. Burns in one episode was also stated to have stolen Christmas in 1986.
 * In one future episode, a character again alludes to Mr. Burns having stolen Christmas, this time apparently permanently.
 * Another future episode shows that Milhouse - married to Lisa - really doesn't like Christmas because he's allergic to mistletoe, holly, and the red part of candy canes. He encourages Lisa and their daughter to spend Christmas with her folks while he takes a trip to somewhere that doesn't celebrate it.
 * Turns out Danny Phantom is a Grinch. Growing up with two erratic parents who spend their holidays too busy arguing about Santa's existence gave him a deep hatred of Christmas and probably the only child negligence story involving possessed turkey. He gets over, though.
 * Shrek starts out as one of these in Shrek the Halls.
 * The Beast in Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.
 * Princess Morbucks in The Powerpuff Girls Christmas episode.

Real Life

 * George Washington. What time did he choose to Cross the Delaware? Nice job ruining people's Christmas!
 * This was largely for pragmatic reasons; at the time most American Protestants didn't really consider Christmas a festive holiday, while the Hessians did and thus spent the day enjoying themselves, thus letting their guard down.
 * Admiral Yamamoto. Striking just at the beginning of the holiday season on Dec 7. Of course you know This Means War.
 * Some people, while not actually disliking Christmas itself, get irritated by the constant barrage of Christmas advertising, and businesses shoving Christmas down your throat as early as possible, up to and including stores putting their Christmas decorations on display in the middle of September. Also, trying to run to a store like Best Buy or Walmart just to pick up a small item you need only to find like ten million people there doing their Christmas shopping isn't too fun.
 * Also, some Christmas songs are extremely annoying. Particularly bad offenders are "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer," and "12 Days of Christmas."
 * Even the Christmas songs that aren't on this level of annoyance tend to get old very quickly, as every year there are always about a million different remixes and covers of the same "classic" songs, and they get just as annoying. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is not a bad song, but when you've heard over 100 different versions of it, you quickly reach the conclusion that you never want to hear it again.
 * And related to both of these phenomena, any supermarket, department store, or other retail employee will tell you that being bombarded with a constant loop of Christmas songs every shift from about mid-September onwards is a really good way to develop a passionate loathing of Christmas songs.
 * In a sense, this is caused by the fact that Christmas is a very profitable holiday season for many companies, something they often wish to cash in on even more by trying to get people to buy christmas presents even before Halloween. It's no surprise why the Christmas season gets so tedious, especially considering that by the time Christmas actually starts, people will have been pestered for months about Christmas and are more relieved to see it end rather than begin.
 * Christopher Hitchens. (Surprise, surprise, right?) See this essay, or this one. He wasn't too wild about Hanukkah, either.
 * Ironically enough, there are some Christians who don't particularly care for Christmas, viewing the holiday (and, in many cases, all holidays) as unbiblical and pagan. Jehovah's Witnesses are one well-known example.
 * Historically this would include the Puritans, in both early America and Cromwellian England, who not only refused to celebrate Christmas but actually made it punishable by law to do so.
 * In our own era, "secular-progressives" (ironically, in many ways the complete opposites of the Puritans) are often accused of trying to ruin Christmas, though their meddlings are usually limited to the promotion of more culturally neutral terms like "holidays" or "seasons," or trying to keep Christmas celebrations strictly private.