By Mary Denison Williams

“The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season! Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all May have been that his heart was two sizes too small...’Tomorrow is Christmas! It’s practically here!’ Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, ‘I MUST find some way to stop Christmas from coming!’” 1

When I was twelve years old, the Grinch tried to stop my Christmas from coming. That was the year of the first white Christmas in my memory, not at all like those I had experienced in San Diego, California, with my family. That year my parents divorced, my brother got married, and my sister went to live on her own to be a flight attendant in San Francisco. My mother took me to live with her niece and family in our birthplace of Minneapolis, Minnesota, while she figured out how to transition from being a stay-at-home-Mom to a breadwinner. Initially, I felt scared and homesick and not quite sure what to expect. Amidst the feelings of loss of my family and all that was familiar at that special time of the year, my Christmas gifts from my family that my mother had brought from California were stolen from the car parked outside of St. Bridget’s Catholic Church while I sang in the Children’s Choir at Midnight Mass to celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus.

Despite the Grinch stealing all of the gifts of the Who’s, “Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, Was singing! Without any presents at all! He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME! Somehow or other, it came just the same!” 2

Singing and worshipping God at midnight Mass with my classmates and church was very special and I have loved Christmas Eve service ever since. Having my Mom visit for Christmas was my biggest gift. My cousins had a few gifts for me under the tree. Cousin Rocky shared his slot car racing set with me and we spent Christmas vacation setting up and racing cars in the basement when we weren’t ice skating. My cousins had opened their hearts and home to me and they

became my family too - a lifetime gift. I learned that love is not about addition and subtraction, but love is about multiplication.

The police recovered my Christmas gifts some weeks later, so I had many an hour doing experiments with the Chemistry set I had asked my mother for. I remember spending one afternoon scrubbing goo off of the kitchen ceiling from one of my explosive experiments! The camel-hair jacket my sister, Sharron, had sent kept me cozy more than one winter. On the enclosed card she wrote, “To keep my little Sis warm,” which still warms my heart.

The gifts the Grinch tried to steal from me that Christmas remained in seeds that blossomed into gratitude, a desire for service to God, and most of all, Love.

Abba, Father, Please give us eyes to see the love you have given us in this gift of the Christ Child. Prepare our hearts and help us keep them open both to giving and receiving love from those you have brought into our lives.

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss, pgs 3 & 5
2. Ibid, pgs 44-45