Being Jolly Despite The Grinch

Susan Page
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Wednesday - December 07, 2005
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Deck the halls with boughs of holly - falalalalalalalala.

‘Tis the season to be jolly - falalalalalalalala.

That was fun to type. You should try hitting the “l” and the “a” keys over and over yourself. And sing the notes as you type. It can’t help but make you feel a little jolly, even if your halls aren’t decked with holly. Even if jolly isn’t a mood you’ve visited in a long while.

It’s sometimes hard to be jolly even at Christmas with endless joyous reminders: the miraculous birth of the Christ child, inspirational carols, lights, fanciful displays, the uplifting act of giving personified by a chubby, red-suited elf and, of course, ono-licious food.

With media so pervasive in our world today infiltrating practically every aspect of our lives 24/7, it’s no wonder that the wonder of the season is dimming. The media far prefers the Grinch to Christmas. The media sometimes seems to want to steal Christmas.


For reasons known only to media bosses, jolly doesn’t make good headlines or stories. Jolly is on Page 15, the Grinch on Page 1. Grinches are devious, twisting and spinning positive into negative.

Pitting Americans against each other is a favorite sport of the Grinch. Americans were united after 9-11, and that really irritated the Grinch. He wants people to forget the stories of heroism and sacrifice against a cruel and blood-thirsty enemy and instead focus on political, racial and socio-economic differences. One way the Grinch does this is with polls. The Grinch knows that if a poll tells us a certain number of Americans believe a certain way, we’ll start to doubt our own belief. The Grinch believes Americans are lemmings.

The Grinch likes it when people - especially politicians - start calling each other names, like liar and bigot.

The Grinch loves failure. He wants the war in Iraq to fail and spotlights anyone - no matter how few - who promotes that idea.

The Grinch wants us to forget that Saddam Hussein tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and to believe they were better off then than now. He doesn’t want us to remember that Saddam’s hero was Joseph Stalin, the most brutal, murderous communist dictator in history. He wants the world to focus on the few bad stories from the war front, like Abu Ghraib, not good deeds and courageous efforts by our American troops. The Grinch wants to reduce the American soldier, sailor, airman and Marine to a body count statistic.


The Grinch likes to manipulate history by saying the war in Iraq is another Vietnam. A CNN Grinch just today said that America lost the war in Vietnam because, according to a former North Vietnam Communist general, Ho Chi Minh was a beloved Vietnamese leader and that all Vietnamese wanted the country united. The Grinch likes to infuriate the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who were tortured, starved and “re-educated” after a cowardly U.S. Congress cut off all military aid following the ‘75 pull-out.

Grinches love the idea of taking Christ out of the Christmas holidays, disregarding that the birth of Christ has been commemorated on Dec. 25 since 350 AD Rome by a decree of Julius I - and from the very beginning of our nation. The Grinch loves political correctness.

The Grinch also hates our president. For example, the Grinch would never headline a positive story about his recent trip to the Far East and his bold message on human and religious rights. The Grinch hates that President Bush told the Chinese government to emulate Taiwan, a completely democratic country, and that he attended church services in one of the (only) five recognized churches in Beijing before meeting top leaders.

Grinches are everywhere: movies, TV shows, news broadcasts, newspapers and books. Grinches have agendas.

I’m really sick of the Grinch. This season I’m “deGrinching” my Christmas - not by turning off and tuning out all media, but by just being super conscious of the Grinch and his motives. It’s the only way to prevent him from stealing our falalalalalalalalas and replacing them with falalalalalalala-lies.

‘Tis the season to be jolly.

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