“During the holiday season, Seuss Landing,” which is part of Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park, “is decorated with the holiday charm and cheer of Dr. Seuss’s Who-ville. … Enjoy the music and fun of The Grinchmas Who-liday Spectacular. Plus meet the maven of mischief himself for a photo opportunity,” Universal’s website advises.

If Florida was too far to travel, there was an event called Grinchcon that promised to turn Morristown, New Jersey “into a sea of green” on Dec. 7.

“Prepare yourself for a full day of Christmas party madness: bars fully decked out in holiday décor, jolly DJs, Christmas cocktails, green beer, contests, and raffles with a chance to win $2K in WHOLIDAY cash!” the ticket sales page promised, with tickets running from $10 to $30 per and a raffle on top of that.

The notice reminded those on the bubble that all the cool kids were doing it. Why, “Last year, 3,197 people joined in on the holiday mischief,” it said.

For staycationers, crafters, and holiday lawn ornament warriors, Hobby Lobby has a whole aisle this year devoted to all things Grinch.

For those with more of a sweet tooth, the Krispy Kreme chain has a specialty dozen “Merry Grinchmas Doughnut Collection” this holiday season with three new doughnuts added to the mixing bowl: Grinch face doughnuts, Grinchy Claus doughnuts, and the Cindy-Lou Who Merry Berry Tree doughnuts.

And these examples are only the tip of the Grinchberg.

“Like Ebeneezer Scrooge and Old St. Nick, the Grinch has become inextricably affiliated with the holiday he tried to steal,” wrote Seuss biographer Donald E. Pease in 2010. That is even truer today, going on 15 years later.

From an economic perspective, the Grinch has been “priced in” to the Christmas season. The yuletide’s would-be thief appears to be gobbling up an ever-larger portion of the holiday pie chart. How did that happen?

From Seuss to Seuss Inc.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, may have died in 1991 of cancer, but his publications and intellectual property have shown greater longevity. Most of the expansion of Dr. Seuss’s media presence beyond children’s books was due to the work of his widow Audrey Geisel. She founded Seuss Enterprises after his death and was the head of that venture until she died in 2018. It continues to promote his work today, to great effect.

Dr. Seuss ranked No. 3 on the Forbes list of the highest-paid dead celebrities for 2024 with an estimated $75 million in pretax income going to his estate. Moreover, without massive catalog sales netting the Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury estates $600 million and $250 million, respectively, Dr. Seuss would have topped the chart. Those annual earnings were up from $33 million in 2020 and $9.5 million in 2015, and a good chunk of that came from a certain green grump with a heart “two sizes too small.”

The live-action movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas made almost $346 million in worldwide box office on a budget of $120 million in 2000, according to Box Office Mojo. Some theatergoers may have gone to see leading Grinch Jim Carrey (who at the time could command $20 million a movie), but the character has proven bankable again and again.

The computer-animated movie The Grinch did better on less than the Carrey vehicle in 2018, grabbing over $512 million worldwide on a budget of $75 million. These play in heavy rotation every Christmas season on various channels and platforms, along with the original 1966 TV special, directed by Chuck Jones and narrated by Boris Karloff.

More Grinch On The Way

In partnership with many studios and publishers, Seuss Enterprises has put out several movies and cartoons, licensed the Seuss name and characters for merchandising and theme parks, finished and put out books that were still unpublished at the time of Seuss’s death, and lately pushed slightly beyond the Seuss source material.

It could be telling that a good deal of the newly published material is very Grinchocentric. Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Lost Christmas, the authorized sequel to the original written by Alastair Heim and illustrated by Aristides Ruiz, was published last year by Random House. The new Dr. Seuss Graphic Novel series, also published by Random House, features a new Grinch book, The Grinch Takes a Vacation, for its second offering.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas was far from the bestselling of Seuss’s many books and is not the only part of the Seuss canon that is bankable. The Lorax computer-animated movie, for instance, pulled in over $348 million worldwide on a $70 million budget in 2012.

Yet the Grinch remains Dr. Seuss’s most compelling character. His annual appearances have the added benefit of helping to keep the Seuss name top of mind to sell and license all the other properties.

The why of the Grinch’s appeal has been debated by critics. Seuss wrote many books that were purely for children, but as his audience aged, he wrote for both parents and children. His first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, appeared in 1937. The Grinch tried to cancel Christmas by stealing all the presents, decorations, and food in Whoville a full 20 years later.

There are many things in the story that appeal to children, of course, but adults can also read their own struggles during the Christmas season — money challenges, winter gloominess, family awkwardness, etc. — into the text or see it on the screen. Seuss confessed that there was a bit of himself in the Grinch.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

His storytelling, and his character, helped Seuss and his readers to consider that there might be something good about the season despite all that. “Maybe Christmas,” the Grinch reasoned in defeat, “doesn’t come from a store / Maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more.”

Jeremy Lott is the author of Growlilocks and the Three Humans and other children’s books.