In his article "Neuroscience Explains Why the Grinch Stole Christmas", David DiSalvo calls How the Grinch Stole Christmas! "(...) Dr. Seuss's iconic tale of the green ogre who lives on a mountain, seething while the Whos in the village below celebrate Christmas(...)" And DiSalvo goes on to explain how the Grinch's loneliness is the reason for his dismay with the Whos' way of celebrating the holiday season. When I read this explanation, it made sense to me, as I'd always taken How the Grinch Stole Christmas! to be a story about a previously left-out individual finding his way into society - and being welcomed by the group. But, apparently, there's yet an additional factor besides the Grinch's isolation which causes his displeasure with the holiday season. In the Wikipedia entry for How the Grinch Stole Christmas! it is revealed that Dr. Seuss - who based the character of the Grinch on himself - was fed up with "the commercialization of Christmas". As the book was written in 1957, learning that it was a criticism of the commercialism of the holiday season came as a surprise to me. I'd never before considered when consumerism regarding Christmas might have begun - but definitely wouldn't have imagined it having been an issue as early as in the 1950s. My surprise motivated me to take a closer look at how accurately the depiction of the commercialization of the holiday season in Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! reflects the actual situation in the US during the 1950s. If this is something you, too, are curious about, you can find out what I've discovered by keeping on reading.

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My first step was to take a closer look at how Dr. Seuss portrays the commercialism of Christmas in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The story is a children’s book, and Misty Figueira's description in "Ab-Seuss-Lutely: The Benefits of Dr. Seuss Books" of Dr. Seuss's work in general as being "(...) unique, with a cartoon style and bright, vivid illustrations (...)" and as having "(...) interesting vocabulary and rhyme (...)" definitely holds true for How the Grinch Stole Christmas! In the parts of the story that depict consumerism concerning the holiday season, two specific elements are highlighted: the Christmas gifts and the Christmas feast. Regarding both, the immense quantity - of presents and of food - is emphasized. And the manner in which Dr. Seuss manages to convey the abundance of gifts and edibles is noteworthy.

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With the presents, for example, he uses a fun blend of drawings and text to make his point. Dr. Seuss lists the items the Grinch takes from the first house he enters:

"Pop guns! And bicycles! Roller Skates! Drums!

"Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And Plums!"

And the fact that every single stolen present mentioned is followed by an exclamation mark seems to add further emphasis. After the Grinch steals all these things - plus the gifts from the other houses in Who-ville - a picture of his sleigh shows just how many Christmas presents there are altogether. The Grinch's sled is laden so full with them that the resulting stack appears to defy the laws of physics. It seems that it would be utterly impossible that such a precariously thrown-together high pile would not topple over in real life!

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After this examination of how Dr. Seuss portrays consumerism regarding Christmas in the How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, my next step was to try to determine what the actual situation was in the US during the 1950s. In Contemporary United States, Duncan and Goddard claim that in the 1950s, "Americans created a consumer society." It appears quite likely that this mentality would also have affected the holiday season. And - in a December 2014 CWS Blog post with the title "A Commercial Christmas Story" - CableWholesale does, in fact, maintain that "(...)(t)he commercialism of Christmas (...) worsened throughout the 1950s, as the focus on Christmas became (...) more about gift giving and taking children to see Santa at the local Macy's." A fun fact on the relationship between the holiday season becoming more about consumerism and Christmas gaining in popularity in the US can be found in "Is Christmas too commercial? Well, that's the reason it became popular" where Arthur Takahashi quotes Dr. Ruth McClelland-Nugent that in America, Christmas "'(...) really became popular through this commercial process. (...)'" If you are interested in some visual impressions of real-life Christmas in the 1950s, I can recommend doing a Google search on "1950s Christmas". Quite a few of the resulting images show Christmas presents, often in large quantity - just as Dr. Seuss does in his story!

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All of these findings indicate that by the time How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was written, the holiday season had, indeed, already become quite commercialized. So Dr. Seuss's point is valid, and his story adequately reflects the actual situation in the US at that time. But there is yet more, which allows me to wrap up this blog post on a merry and Christmas-y note: Even though Dr. Seuss was - as I mentioned earlier - annoyed about what had become of Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! apparently is not merely a criticism of the consumerism regarding the holiday season. In "Dr. Seuss' Surprising Inspiration for the Grinch", Brad Witter quotes Dr. Seuss as saying, "'(...) I wrote the story about my sour friend, the Grinch, to see if I could rediscover something about Christmas that obviously I'd lost.'" And the following lines from the story seem to indicate that both Dr. Seuss and the Grinch - in the end - do manage to find that Christmas can still carry a meaning that goes beyond the commercialization surrounding the holiday.

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"Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!

"'Maybe Christmas,' he thought, 'doesn't come from a store.

"'Maybe Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more!'"

 

Sources

"A Commercial Christmas Story." CWS Blog, 24 Dec. 2014, https://cablewholesale.com.

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DiSalvo, David. "Neuroscience Explains Why the Grinch Stole Christmas." Psychology Today,

21 Dec. 2014, https://www.psychologytoday.com.

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"Dr. Seuss." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

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Duncan, Russel, and Joseph Goddard. Contemporary United States. 5th ed. Red Globe Press,

2018.

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Figueira, Misty. "Ab-Seuss-Lutely: The Benefits of Dr. Seuss Books." Hohonu, vol. 16, 2018,

pp. 11-13. University of Hawai'i at Hilo, https://www.hilo.hawaii.edu.

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Hargrove, Anna, and Dr. John Saunders. "The Pedagogical Implications Of Dr. Seuss's

Children's Literature." The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Summer 2020,

https://louis.uah.edu.

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"How the Grinch Stole Christmas!." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org. Accessed 28 Oct.

2025.

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Seuss, Dr. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Harper Collins Children's Books, 2010.

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Takahashi, Arthur. "Is Christmas too commercial? Well, that's the reason it became popular."

Jagwire, 14 Dec. 2018, https://jagwire.augusta.edu.

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Trier University Department of English Studies. "America in Fiction. Projects from winter

term 2021/22." Lang 701/ Lang 901 Projects, 2019-2023,

https://ebbert09.wixsite.com/lang901. Accessed 14 Jan. 2026.

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Witter, Brad. "Dr. Seuss' Surprising Inspiration for the Grinch." Biography, 24 Dec. 2024,

https://www.biography.com.

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