**This article is completely satirical and for entertainment purposes only.**

Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas was a classic family Christmas book that was adapted into an animated movie in 1966. Nearly forty years later, Jim Carrey starred in a live action adaptation of the story in 2000 that revealed much more about the Grinch’s backstory. In 2018, a second animated Grinch movie was released.

For the purpose of this article, Jim Carrey’s version of the story will take precedence. 

At the very beginning of the film, four young Whoville citizens climb up a nearby mountain. Their intention was to dare each other to knock on the Grinch’s door, despite being afraid of him. The Grinch sees his security alarms going off and responds by scaring them off with a mechanical puppet at the door. 

The Grinch made it very clear to all citizens of Whoville that he did not want anyone on his property. He chose to live very high up in the mountains where it would be very hard for the Whos to come visit him, and while the scene doesn’t show any “no trespassing” signs it is safe to assume that the Whos knew that the Grinch wanted to be left alone. 

Even after the effort the Grinch made to frighten Whos away, delinquent Who teenagers still delighted in tormenting him. His annoyance with this continued pattern among young Whos is not only justified, but is potentially a legal issue. 

According to Chris Meyers and the Findlaw Staff, there are many cases in which the Whos could potentially be committing neighborhood harassment. 

According to FindLaw, “Harassment must be a repeated and intentional act.”

The Grinch had a whole security system and machine puppet designed to scare away the young Whos, implying that this event happens often enough that he needed to have a way to easily get rid of the pesky teens. 

“Coming onto your yard or bothering your pet after you asked them to stay away” can be considered a violation of the Grinch’s rights as a property owner.

Additionally, the Grinch directly expressed an issue he had with the Whos celebrating Christmas. 

“And then, oh the noise,” he said. “Oh the noise, noise, noise, noise!” 

Another potential legal argument is that his neighbors are being uncooperative about their music. If the Grinch could hear their Christmas activities from the top of a nearby mountain, it must have been far beyond a normal amount of noise. 

“Neighborhood harassment can take many forms, including…repeatedly playing loud music during city ‘quiet hours’ or after you have asked them to stop,” FindLaw said. 

Despite this, the Grinch would likely never pursue this violation legally because he hated interacting with the Whos. 

As if the Grinch didn’t suffer enough harassment from his neighbors, there was a song written about him with direct insults embedded in the lyrics. This song played during a montage of the Grinch preparing to steal Christmas. 

“The three words that describe you are as follows, and I quote, ‘Stink, stank, stunk’,” the song reads.

This is just one example of the blatant bullying present in this song. It deems him a “bad banana,” showing that he was seen as nothing more than a villain. There was no empathy for him as a person. 

These neighborhood violations and bullying would irritate anyone. There’s only so much disrespect a person can take before an outburst occurs, such as stealing Christmas. 

Near the beginning of the movie, the narrator explains what could be possible causes for the Grinch hating Christmas.

“It could be that his head wasn’t screwed on just right,” the narrator said. 

Doctor Phillip Cordova wrote an article about this very condition. It’s possible for your head to become misaligned with your first vertebrae, giving patients the feeling that it isn’t “screwed on” properly. 

“A lot of it has to be from looking down on your phone or how you sit at your computer or laptop,” Cordova said. “Too much looking down or down to the side and those muscles can get tight. If the muscles remain tight and eventually shorten, they will slowly but surely pull that bone out of alignment.” 

While the Grinch probably didn’t spend a lot of time on devices, he did spend quite a bit of time staring down at the Whos down in Whoville. His home on the mountain gave him the perfect place to look down upon the disrespectful Whos and despise them. 

This is not the only suspected medical issue the Grinch had. The narrator continues to list reasons why the Grinch hated Christmas.

“It may have been that his heart was two sizes too small,” the narrator said. 

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, also known as POTS, is a condition that affects people with small hearts. 

The condition is most often recognized when there is a significant increase in heart rate when an individual stands or sits up. 

Typically when a person without POTS stands up, the blood rushes downwards towards their stomach and limbs. To compensate for that, the heart vessels constrict and the heart rate increases slightly to pump blood upwards to the brain and lungs to maintain blood flow. 

When an individual with POTS stands up, this function in the nervous system does not work properly. This causes a drop in blood pressure, scaring the heart into pumping extra hard to make sure there is enough blood flowing to the brain and lungs, drastically increasing heart rate.

In cases when an individual has a small heart, there is less blood volume in the body and the heart has a harder time regulating blood flow throughout the body. POTS is commonly known as “Grinch Syndrome” because of his heart being two sizes too small. 

Some symptoms include problems with thinking, memory, and concentration, headaches, and poor sleep. 

The Grinch may have struggled with lack of good judgment and thinking due to his POTS, and this would have contributed to his decision to steal an entire holiday from the Whos. 

Although it is not specifically mentioned in Jim Carrey’s version of the Grinch, the original narrator mentions him having shoes that were too small. 

The Grinch lived on top of a mountain, which also happened to be where the Whos dumped their trash. All of his clothes and furniture had come from rummaging through the Whos’ discarded items. He had no access to shoes that were the right size for him. 

Certainly having shoes that are too small and uncomfortable to walk in would make one grumpy. 

Outside of just his physical condition, there are questions to be asked about his behavioral patterns. 

According to the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities on the CDC website, the Grinch shows plausible signs of having autism. 

Common symptoms and signs of autism include impulsive behavior, unusual eating habits, problems with communication and social interaction, restricted behaviors, and having obsessive interests. 

The Grinch struggles to relate to any of the people around him, but he manages to understand his dog Max. He also doesn’t understand the Whoville Christmas traditions and is socially awkward in situations where he is forced to interact with Whos. He doesn’t like being around people and restricts himself from human interaction as much as possible. 

In one scene of the movie, the Grinch is seen sorting through a pile of dirty vegetables. He proceeds to pick up a white onion and take a big bite out of it, as if it was an apple. This is an unusual choice of food, but the Grinch acts as if eating things like this was a regular occurrence for him. 

The Grinch quickly becomes obsessed with ending Christmas for the Whos. He impulsively decides to steal all Christmas items from the Whos. He steals everything from them using an elaborately built flying sleigh. 

The time spent crafting his plan and building his sleigh would have taken a normal person months. But the Grinch’s obsession with ending Christmas made it possible for him to do it in just a few days. 

The Early Intervention research group at Northwestern University published an article linking sound sensitivity to autism. 

“Hyperacusis is an increased sensitivity to sound that is commonly found among people with autism,” the article said. “When a sound is distressing to a child, he or she may show discomfort by covering their ears, trying to turn off the source of the sound or leaving the noisy environment.” 

The Grinch has a clear hypersensitivity to the noise from the Whos, despite it being so far away. This could be another reason why the Grinch chose to live on top of a nearby mountain, to escape the noise.

Without a degree, it is hard to determine exactly what was different about the Grinch that would impact his decision making. It is likely he had autism or another neurological disorder that led to him isolating himself and impulsively stealing Christmas. 

The Grinch actively chose to live up in the mountains, away from everyone else, but isolation is unhealthy for anyone. 

According to Shonna Waters, aggressive behavior is a symptom of social isolation. 

“They might snap more easily when they disagree with someone or become angry when they feel rejected,” Waters said. “Oftentimes, this is because the person is unable to regulate their emotions.” 

The Grinch spent many years living alone. His only social interaction was talking to himself, and to his dog. 

In one scene, the Grinch yells into the abyss of his cave and hears a different voice talking back at him. This hallucination is a sign of a deeper mental issue within the Grinch’s mind. 

In a flashback scene in the film, the Grinch attempts to show a girl that he likes her through a handmade Christmas gift. He was demonized for his physical appearance, because the green color of his skin and fur was unusual for the Whos to see. He tried his best to look nice for his crush by shaving his face.

The Grinch was only a child, still in elementary school. He was not taught how to shave properly and accidentally cut himself multiple times. When he showed up at school the next day to give his crush the gift, his whole class and teacher laughed at him for the way he looked. 

The Grinch responded by throwing a tantrum, and consequently throwing a Christmas tree across the room. 

This aggressive behavior could be caused by a neurological disorder resulting in a lack of emotional control, by the bullying he has received for his appearance his entire life piling up on him, or because he was simply an angry child doing what children do when they’re upset. 

The bullies were never punished. 

Before the Grinch became obsessed with stealing Christmas, he was convinced by a little Who girl, Cindy Lou, to attend a Christmas event. The Grinch was reluctant to go interact with the Whos, and struggled to decide what to wear. 

He wanted to be liked by the Whos. It had been years since he had purposely socialized with them, and he was afraid to be judged negatively by them again. He has a small battle with himself and tries to find an excuse not to go.

Eventually the Grinch does show up and is awarded the Holiday Cheermeister award. 

Immediately after gaining this position, the Whos put the Grinch through a series of embarrassing and ridiculous Christmas traditions that the Grinch didn’t understand and wanted no part in.

He tries to make multiple excuses of why he should leave to escape this humiliation. 

Somewhere during the celebration, the Grinch starts to enjoy the competitive side of the celebration a little more. He was beginning to enjoy himself. 

Right as the Grinch was starting to feel accepted by his community, the Mayor pulled him on stage.

“A gift of a Christmas shave,” the Mayor said. 

The Mayor had gone to elementary school with the Grinch, and knew how this memory had affected the Grinch. He purposely brought up a harmful subject to embarrass the Grinch and publicly bully him under the false idea that it was all in good fun. 

This was the last straw for the Grinch, and soon his obsession with ending Christmas for the Whos began to take over. 

Whether it was his heart, his shoes, his head, mental disorders, neighborhood harassment, blatant bullying from his peers, or a combination of all of it, the Grinch had reached his limit. 

Any person faced with this much difficulty would be prone to an emotional outburst. 

While stealing an entire holiday from his hometown might not have been the smartest decision, the reasons he did it were valid, and he doesn’t deserve to be seen as the villain. 

The Grinch was the victim in this story. His seemingly malicious actions were merely responses to the mistreatment, medical neglect, harassment, and lack of empathy he received from those around him.