How did the story of the Grinch come into Christmas?
To most folks, he’s the scheming, green sourpuss who hated Christmas so much he tried to make it vanish completely. But the Grinch inspired a little more sympathy in his creator. To Dr. Seuss, he wasn’t a villain — just a guy whose heart, “two sizes too small,” needed a dose of the true spirit of the holiday. In fact, Seuss himself said that he identified with the fuzzy anti-hero. Just like the Grinch, Theodor Geisel, who wrote and illustrated dozens of books under the pseudonym Dr. Seuss, didn’t go in for the fancy celebrations surrounding the holiday. According to his niece Peggy Owens, he wasn’t “into the sentimentality” of the season. Still, he spent every Christmas at home with his family in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1957, at the age of 53, Seuss published The Grinch, and thousands of children first discovered the story of the Whos — an endlessly cheerful bunch bursting with holiday spirit — and the outsider so sickened by their joy in the season that he decides to hijack
