Grinch Does His Job, Ruins Christmas for Kids at Local Mall

Photo illustration, obviously

The Grinch did his job.

On Sunday, the Terror of Whoville was supposed to have made a joint appearance with Santa himself at Bucks County’s Neshaminy Mall. But, according to the angry parents who have since flooded the mall’s Facebook page with complaints, the Grinch was a no-show. CBS 3 even did a report on it, which led to an amusing TV graphic: “Lisa Kots — Took Daughter To See The Grinch.”

So what happened? The Neshaminy Mall first issued a cryptic note: “Due to unfortunate circumstances, the Grinch will no longer be making any appearances.” Later, the mall said it was the fault of World Wide Holiday, the Ohio-based company contracted for the mall’s Santa visits.

Neither the mall nor World Wide Photography responded to requests for comment, but in a follow-up story CBS 3 got ahold of the letter the photography company sent to aggrieved customers:

Thank you for contacting World Wide Photography, we sincerely apologize for this inconvenience, as we want to make everyone’s experience with Santa the best experience possible. We do not take this lightly as we have trained all of our staff on location to deal with all type of situations. I will be sure to log a formal complaint with the location manager so we are sure to improve the experience for customers at your location. Again we are terribly sorry for the experience you received and we are going to work hard on making sure the experience is improved. Please feel free to contact us if you have any more questions or concerns!

According to an army of sleuths on the mall’s Facebook page, the mall shut down the Grinch’s appearance after a parent complained that the character scared her child. This doesn’t really make much sense — why would the mall scrub its Facebook page of all Grinch references over a complaint? Is it possible, perhaps, that the mall (and/or World Wide Photography) didn’t get the rights to the character and had to pretend the Grinch was never going to appear with Santa?

But while the scapegoat’s complaint may not have been what shut down the Grinch, I think the parent in question did the right thing. Why would you want to get your child’s photo taken with the creature whose sole goal in life is to steal Christmas presents? How would you answer your child’s inevitable question about why the very real figure of Santa Claus is posing for photos with a character from a book and TV special? Why would you think the Grinch’s change of heart was anything but a fake story for TV ratings? The Grinch never changed! It was all a ruse.

Per the posts on the mall’s Facebook page, the Grinch very much did ruin Christmas for a lot of people this year. Clearly this was the Grinch’s plan all along: schedule an appearance, then disappear at the very last minute. It’s amazing, right? Fifty years after the TV special, the Grinch is still stealing Christmas.