What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store?

by chuckofish

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
– Dr. Seuss

The Grinch first appeared in the 1957 story How the Grinch Stole Christmas, written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss, published as both a Random House book and in an issue of Redbook magazine. My paternal grandmother, completely out of character, sent us the story from the magazine and that was the version we always had. It turned brown with age and was taped and stapled. We read it every year on Christmas Eve, along with other Christmas stories, poems and songs. When my children were little, we finally bought the book. I was never a fan of the 1966 TV version and never saw the Jim Carrey film version. It is best read aloud. And its message is still solid and timely.