Zach Wilson--Outside Reading 5

I love Christmas.  Part of my family's Christmas tradition is watching Christmas movies, and reading Christmas books.  Christmas is a religious holiday, centered around Christ's birth, redemption of the world, and it is a religious holiday centered around family.  There is overlap between the Christmas books and movies we bring out of the attic, and one of these books which are also movies, would be Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, which was made into the cartoon TV special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and the 2000 Jim Carrey version, The Grinch.  These adaptations are similar to the varying adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in that the modern adaptation is more intense, and the classic version is more of a fun portrayal of the plot.  All three adaptations bring religious themes into a secular story about a religious holiday.  Christmas is a holiday which largely loses its meaning because of the over-marketing of American consumerism.  Seuss was subtly criticizing the loss of Christmas meaning through metaphor.  Consumerism/Materialism is the Grinch, which causes people to lose sight of the joy that is present in the deeper meaning of Christmas, which to Christians is Christ, and to secularists is family.  The redemption of the Grinch also emphasizes the Christian theme of grace, as the formerly 'grinchy'  "Grinch’s small heart/Grew three sizes that day!"  He is welcomed into Whoville with the Whoos and even carves the roast beast, at a family gathering, which is the embodiment of the Christmas spirit.