Top 10 Real-Life Grinches
These historical humbugs rival Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch in their lack of Christmas spirit
- By T.A. Frail
- Smithsonian.com, December 07, 2009, Subscribe
1. Brock Chisholm was a distinguished Canadian psychiatrist who, as the first director-general of the World Health Organization, came to be called the “doctor to the human race.” But he was also known for telling an Ottawa home-and-school association in 1945: “Any child who believes in Santa Claus has had his ability to think permanently destroyed. … Can you imagine a child of 4 being led to believe that a man of grown stature is able to climb down a chimney…. That Santa Claus can cover the entire world in one night distributing presents to everyone! He will become a man who has ulcers at 40, develops a sore back when there is a tough job to do, and refuses to think realistically when war threatens.” When a reporter gave him a chance to clarify his remarks, Chisholm said that “Santa Claus was one of the worst offenders against clear thinking, and so an offense against peace.”
2. The Rev. Paul Nedergaard raised a furor in Copenhagen in 1958 when he denounced a Danish child-welfare agency’s fund-raising effort because it involved the sale of Christmas seals bearing an image of Santa Claus. “These seals bear a symbol of a pagan goblin,” he said. “You should refuse to buy them. Find some other way to aid the welfare organization.” Danes were already up in arms over some remarks on Santa made in Copenhagen just 10 days earlier by…Dr. Brock Chisholm.
3. The British officer who ended the Christmas truce of 1914 might have lived in infamy—if someone had recorded his name. The unsanctioned truce erupted after British and German troops, upon listening to each other’s caroling throughout that Christmas Eve, left their trenches at dawn to fraternize, trading cigarettes and plum pudding and even kicking around a soccer ball. But then the British officer ordered his men back to their posts; firing resumed a few hours later. And officers on both sides kept a vigil against similar outbreaks of humanity every December for the rest of the war.
4. Diamond Jim Brady approached the recession-wracked Christmas of 1896 with a resolve to spread his wealth, and so he did, lavishing gifts on acquaintances around the country. But his generosity was fueled by ill-gotten gains. On election night that year, biographer Harry Paul Jeffers writes, Brady won about $180,000 (about $4.7 million today) by making crooked bets on the McKinley-Bryan presidential election. Then he put some of those winnings into a pump-and-dump scheme involving stock in the Reading Railroad, which was had just emerged from receivership. Brady, Jeffers writes, sold out in time to enrich himself by $1.25 million (or about $33 million today).
5. DJ Dick Whittinghill of KMPC in Los Angeles refused all requests that he play cuts from Elvis’s Christmas Album, a monumental release in November 1957 that included not only “Blue Christmas,” “White Christmas” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” but also “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” According to Linda Martin and Kerry Segrave’s book Anti-Rock, Whittinghill said that exposing the youth of L.A. to the Presley versions of such songs would be “like having Tempest Storm give Christmas gifts to my kids.” (Tempest Storm was then one of the biggest names in burlesque.)
6. The U.S. Coast Guard had to add rumrunners to its list of coastal threats after Prohibition began in 1919, and by December 1924 there were ominous signs that the Coasties’ vigilance was wreaking havoc in the trade. “Rumrunning has altered almost unbelievably,” New York Times reporter James C. Young wrote that year, reprising a story he had written the year before. “The holiday aspect is gone. The rules are changed. The amateur is no more. Bargain days along Rum Row have ended.” Better enforcement, Young reported, had made the business unsafe for the little guy—and left an opening for criminal syndicates.
7. Ambrose Bierce was as famous for his misanthropy as he was for his short stories. He called Christmas a “bogus holiday,” and his baleful outlook extended to his own mother, according to Bierce biographer Roy Morris Jr. As a young boy Bierce asked her if there really was a Santa Claus, and she told him there was; he soon found out otherwise. “I proceeded to detest my deceiver with all my little might and main,” he recalled as an adult. “And even now I cannot say that I experience any consuming desire to renew my acquaintance with her in that other life to which, she also assured me, we hasten hence.”
8. Oliver Cromwell, the author of England’s interregnum, did not ban Christmas, but he led the movement that did. In 1647—six years before Cromwell established the English Protectorate—the Puritan-minded Parliament, fearful that feasting, caroling and wassailing was leading to disorder (or enjoyment), outlawed Christmas celebrations. Trees? Gone. Nativity scenes? Gone. Decorations? Gone. The whole dreary ban lasted until Cromwell was overthrown in 1660.
9. The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, another Puritan-minded institution, in 1659 ordered that “whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way…shall pay for every such offense five shillings as a fine to the county.” This ban lasted 22 years, and Christmas celebrations in Boston didn’t really recover for a century or more.
10. First James Jameson of Los Angeles stole a set of ivory-and-gold false teeth in December 1907. (“They are showy,” reported the Los Angeles Times, “the kind a man may wear on state occasions, to weddings, dinner, or to the club. They are also working teeth, fit to chew plain corn[ed] beef and cabbage as well as quail on toast.”) Then Jameson tried to sell the gold to a jeweler. And then he got arrested, meaning, as the Times noted, that the teeth, which a “toothless individual had hoped to use in chewing up his Christmas turkey,” would now be “marked with a big sign, ‘Exhibit A,’ and they will be put on some dusty shelf in the courtroom and have a rest for a while.”
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article included a photo of film actor Edward Arnold portraying Diamond Jim Brady. That photo has been replaced with one of the real-life Diamond Jim.
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Comments (56)
Fascinating. Here's what I learned. There are those who have fun with creative imagination, and those who worry that creative imagination 'damages the mind'. Two opposite groups. The first can easily understand the deprivation of the second. But, the second just doesn't get it. Yet, the second group, with less range in thought, not only calls the first group 'brain damaged' but worries that wars will be less easily joined because of them. I can now postulate with some confidence that less imagination equals more war.
Posted by Wilson on December 22,2011 | 11:03 AM
Thanks for the share. Good to see a psychiatrist at the top of the list. I have an interesting post at Lime Bucket. Please leave your comment.
http://www.limebucket.com/healthy-snacks-ideas-smart-healthy-snacks-for-weight-loss.html
Posted by Vivek Srivastava on December 30,2010 | 08:27 AM
What a dreary bunch of naysayers...this column has given me a stomach ache. My God, what happened to the warmth and humanity of yesteryear...God help us!
Posted by Richard on December 24,2010 | 10:39 AM
Bierce and the other anti-Santa "Grinches" were right. Actually, the lesson that one can't trust one's parents- especially if they're religious types- is a valuable one (at least it was in my case). As for the original significance of December 25th, I'm a traditionalist to the core: keep Saturn in Saturnalia!
Posted by Tom Carr on December 12,2010 | 12:58 AM
Actually, Virginia, yes there really was a Saint named Nikolaus - a real person upon whose actions of generosity, kindness and piety the character of Santa Claus was based. My kids know his story and are excited when it's their turn to take part in being Santa for others.
There's nothing wrong with believing in beauty, kindness, generosity and even justice and selflessness. Though these qualities may be hard to find - they are, in fact, real despite being so rarely exemplified. Just because the examples are infrequent and often imperfect does not mean that the ideal is false.
Posted by B Madden on December 10,2010 | 08:07 AM
Hey "Christmas" IS a contrived holiday. The Catholic Church tried to incorporate pagans into the church by arbitrarily setting Christ's birth (which historians believe happened in August or September) on top of the pagan celebration of winter solstice (when the days finally quite getting shorter and started getting more sun). Over the last century, big business got into it and used it as an excuse to shore up sagging sales for the year, and to dump year-end inventory.
The word "Grinch", per Merriam-Webster dictionary, was coined by the Dr. Seuss' story "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and is defined as "killjoy, spoilsport". If I remember the movie correctly, it's about someone who stifles goodwill and works to create misery. That's what the current holiday does -- lies to small children, threatens them with punishment, creates stress in the family, fosters financial hardship, and is the one time of year that the highest rates of domestic violence occur. Is this something that YOU would support?
Not me. I'd prefer to remember Christ's birth as it was, and even more what he did the three and a half years of his ministry. His message of love, kindness, justice, and caring for our fellow man should be carried out year-round. His paying for the sins of Adam and Eve, his giving us the hope of freedom from Stan's rule and an everlasting life in a paradise earth as God had originally planned -- well, that I'll celebrate. That, I'll remember. That, I'm grateful for and will try to pass along to others -- on a daily basis, not just one day out of the year.
Posted by Claire Talltree on December 9,2010 | 05:38 PM
Ok, I am adding to my list of "don't talk to strangers about" both christmas, and santa clause. Apparently the pagan roots of all Xtian holidays don't make a dent in what is done.....
Posted by Jazz on December 9,2010 | 04:59 PM
An article apparently worthy of bringing out the staunchest of Grinches out of the woodwork. Enough said, I have a letter to Santa to compose...
Posted by Pensacola on December 9,2010 | 04:19 PM
Professor Pat, you are the one that is mistaken. Larry is mostly correct, except for the facts that Cromwell died in late 1658, not 1659, and Richard was Lord Protector from his father's death to 1659. Oliver Cromwell was named Lord Protector in 1653 by the "Instrument of Government," and was never overthrown in his lifetime. I suggest you get your facts straight before correcting others.
Posted by Andy on December 9,2010 | 03:40 PM
Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Jesus Christ walk into a bar...
Posted by Sam Hill on January 9,2010 | 01:08 AM
Actually, we need to believe the little lies to believe the big lies later on in life. You know, justice, mercy, that sort of thing. These are lies, yet we believe in them. Why? Because we could not live in a world where justice and mercy don't exit; and yet we do. The fact that Saint Nick does exist in a congruent reality must disturb most of you, but there it is. Terry Prachett had it correct when Death looks at the angel Azrael and says: There is no justice; there is just us.
Besides, what is wrong with a little magic?
Posted by Robert on January 7,2010 | 10:33 PM
I think you should up to follow up each of those peoples backgrounds. They might have been enemies of progress.
Posted by Camdy on December 23,2009 | 12:00 PM
I am sick and tired of seeing Santa Claus given a bad reputation. My family has followed the Santa Claus legend since before I was born 76 years ago. When my own children were approaching the questioning age, I taught them that Santa was the "personification" of the spirit of love in Christmas. The true meaning of Christmas, the birth of the Christ Child, was always the centerpiece of our celebration. But, I would never have robbed our children, grandchildren or great grandchildren of the Santa legend. It became increasingly precious to the older children as they grew old enough to know "the truth," and became the helpers on Christman eve setting up "Santa's gifts" for their younger siblings.
Posted by Ila Toney on December 15,2009 | 05:31 PM
I found the whole santa story a profound revelation that my parents would lie to me.
I found this disturbing as a child.
Posted by S.N. Bratt on December 14,2009 | 02:23 AM
Commenters here are taking it quite seriously. I would not have clicked on that particular link if I was looking for a scientific journal or detailed historical archives. It was a cute 3 minute read and I got it; but then I was raised as a believer in Claus. I must have learned the truth slowly around the age of 8, I guess, as I do not recall any horrific scarring revelation. It was fun! I am sure it has added to my ongoing holiday spirit and I still think the greatest Christmas story is the Easter story.
(I do kinda regret that the Coast Guard was included - But I got that point too.)
Ho Ho Ho
Posted by linda on December 13,2009 | 12:11 PM
A lot of the Christmas things came with Prince Albert Queen Victoria's husband. the Christmas tree ect.
Posted by roger wood on December 13,2009 | 06:40 AM
It should be remembered that Ambrose Bierce was a great satirist and a master of comically exaggerated rhetoric, who once wrote a series of short stories called "The Parenticide Club." So it's quite possible that he was pulling the public's leg with this statement, and didn't really hate his mother.
That said, I agree with the idea of not lying to one's children and telling them that mythical figures are real. The Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, and Easter Bunny business undermined my trust in my own parents, without a doubt.
Posted by Doubting Thomas on December 11,2009 | 02:03 AM
Tsk, tsk, wrong twice over: you changed the picture of 'Diamond Jim Brady' to one of the real-life person... but now it's captioned as actor Edward Arnold! OUCH!
I have to agree with #1 and #2: parents who lie to their children in this fashion are betraying their trust. Once they find out - usually in a painful/humiliating manner, too - they will never completely trust that parent again.
Better to tell the legends and known facts of St. Nickolas and 'Santa Klaus' (there was a really good article here about it @ a month ago); the truth can be so much more entertaining than fiction.
Posted by Shir-El on December 11,2009 | 01:02 AM
Brock Chisholm has a point & logic after all. People just dont want to face the fact that Santa Claus doesnt exist. And they continue to live with that lie.
Regarding Brock Chisholm and Paul Nedergaard, i think they are not a bunch of grinch. They are just realistic.
Posted by parson on December 10,2009 | 02:09 AM
I have to point out several flaws in your choice for #3. You make it seem as if the 1914 Christmas Truce occurred in only one place, or in one contiguous block, all of which was overseen by a single Commanding Officer. In fact, the Christmas truce was widespread and disparate, and was not only between English and "German" troops, but also involved between French and Austro-Hungarian troops. The fact that it consisted of widespread, separate incidents makes it all the more phenomenal. And it was not as short-lived as you would have us believe: in some cases the truce lasted until New Year's Day or beyond.
Posted by John on December 10,2009 | 02:05 AM
Mr. Chisholm and Mr. Bierce really were sad little people. I don't have anything against parents not wanting to teach their kids Santa isn't real, but these guys went beyond that elaborating on what a sad life a person believing in Santa would lead (Chisholm) and becoming estranged from his mother (Bierce).
Posted by danny on December 10,2009 | 12:39 AM
no offense, larry. your factual events as mentioned are in esence distorted to the point of comical. cromwell was very much over thrown in doctorate form, as any historian would know. oliver was never sized as you say "lord protector", his impetus was much less than a figure head. he was not mentioned in any relevant schooling i ever sought so with-in. its showing how little you acknowledge history in the sense, by your most trivial and yet useless excuse that monck/churchill switched sides. sides is a relative concept considering the tymes at work, wouldn't you agree?. a little more delving into actuality to the truth might set you free larry. i abhor simple historians on the internet construing facts and twisting the image of monsters and angels to benifit a tyme. an amateur histrian, from books with little hands on research can caligraphy(ie) what the real truth was is a true art. johnny cochrane had the same gift. patricc prentiss(prof. hist/econ-hist/ strategic hist-USMC-pent)
Posted by pat on December 10,2009 | 12:23 AM
Another addition to the Oliver Cromwell entry. Christmas trees would probably not have been banned in England under Cromwell because there would have been no reason to. At that time, Christmas trees were still a fairly local German custom. It wasn't until Queen Victoria that they really became popular in England and abroad.
Posted by Jamie on December 10,2009 | 12:19 AM
cromwell should have known better for on his grave it states that CHRIST NOT MAN IS KING!!
Posted by mike on December 10,2009 | 12:03 AM
Notice how none of these men are Conservatives.
Posted by Doc on December 10,2009 | 11:53 PM
number 1 and 2 got a point... why not celebrate Christ's comming to earth and not Santa's??? that's what CHRISTmas is all about right?
Posted by arvin gerald m. on December 10,2009 | 11:48 PM
Good grief! The first two made this list because they refuted Santa Claus?!? Begging your pardon, but Santa Claus is NOT real! One would think December 25th were "Santa Claus Day." Is it wrong to tell children the truth? Is it anti-Christmas not to pretend he exists? I suppose my parents should be on this list, because they never deceived my siblings and me into believing in someone who doesn't exist. And I suppose that you would call me Ebenezer Scrooge as well, because I do not put up a Christmas tree in mid-November; and I abhor the Christmas music.
Half of those listed belong on a list of heroes, not a list of "Grinches."
Posted by Hannah on December 10,2009 | 11:32 PM
Cromwell was not overthrown -- unless it was by a higher power -- he died.
Posted by Ray Bass on December 10,2009 | 11:29 PM
Cromwell actually died in 1658.
Posted by Yah on December 10,2009 | 09:59 PM
I'm not sure how it makes you a grinch to dislike Santa Claus (since that's not what Christmas is about), enforce the law, or refuse to play music that you think will encourage young people to follow worldly trends. I do agree with #3 though. So sad.
Posted by Anna Brown on December 10,2009 | 09:47 PM
Your photo of "Diamond Jim Brady" is a fraud. That photo is of an actor who played Brady in a movie. This does not bode well for your level of accuracy and or veracity in your "reporting". You should have identified the actor in the photo as portraying Brady. This may seem like a small point to some, but I believe that you have practiced very poor journalism in this instance. "Baah-Humbug!"
Posted by Ed Dugan on December 10,2009 | 09:21 PM
TRUE HEROES!!! I salute them all!
Posted by Justin on December 10,2009 | 08:48 PM
obviously they are all men. What big surprise there.
Posted by ava on December 10,2009 | 08:43 PM
Ok so if you don't believe in christmas I get that. But whats wrong with having family around being happy and eating really good food. That in it self can be done anytime of the year. So they're gifts. Can't you give a love one a gift for the sake of love. Its quality time together whether you lable it christmas or not. It shocks me that some people have went that far to ban happiness. Larry thanks for sharing the information, It is appreciated.
Posted by Sofia Rosalina on December 10,2009 | 08:38 PM
You forgot the grinches in the Supreme Court who took Christmas out fo the schools.
Posted by MidiMagic on December 10,2009 | 08:22 PM
The coast guard has nothing to do with that
Posted by gio on December 10,2009 | 07:52 PM
FACT CHECK: The Christmas tree did not make it to Britain until King George III's reign, long after both Cromwells.
Posted by ucity88 on December 10,2009 | 07:51 PM
The number one top Grinch in this list should be our modern day goverment, that has done everything they possibly can to take CHRIST out of CHRISTMAS!!!
Posted by Marshall Johnson on December 10,2009 | 07:39 PM
Prince Albert introduced the custom of Christmas trees to England in the 18th century. Cromwell couldn't have eliminated a practice that hadn't begun.
Also I fail to see how not approving of Santa Claus in and of itself qualifies one as on par with Ebenezer Scrooge, in whose story the benevolent head elf isn't even mentioned.
I don't dispute the Grinch claim.
Posted by M. Shields on December 10,2009 | 07:33 PM
Bah!!! Humbug!!! Ebenezer Scrooge got it right the first time. that imbecile Charles Dickens then stuffed it up!!!!!
Posted by Bobby Wright on December 10,2009 | 07:28 PM
Another inaccuracy with number 8 - "Trees? Gone. Nativity scenes? Gone."
Except that Christmas trees were not introduced into Britain until th 19th century (by Prince Alfred after marrying Queen Victoria),and Nativity scenes were only just coming into fashion in central (and very Catholic) Europe; staunchly Protestant Britain would resist them as 'idolatory' for some time, not just the Puritans.
Christmas as we celebrate it today is a product of the last 160 years; very little of what we think of as 'traditional' date back before the Victorians, and most of it is later than that.
Posted by Anwyn Davies on December 10,2009 | 07:00 PM
You forgot the ACLU. Not a person but should make it on a list such as this.
Posted by Jason on December 10,2009 | 06:53 PM
I don't understand how the Coast Guard (#6)fits into this story.
Posted by John Jameson on December 10,2009 | 06:44 PM
Why is it that we tell our children not to lie, and to always be honest, yet we lie to them ourselves and have them believe in Santa, and the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy, setting them up for disappointment later on down the road. Most people think that it is a cute and innocent thing. Is it innocent to lie to our children? No matter how you look at it, how little you think it is, it's a freaking lie. There is no truth in it. Let's be honest, Santa is a marketing tool. And it steers kids away from the birth of Jesus. Let's pull our heads out of our rear ends and wise up people.
Posted by Terry on December 10,2009 | 06:38 PM
I think 1,2,7 Where not grinches but men of truth and Integrity, They only spoke the truth and there need to be more outspoken men of truth. To perpetrate such a lie on the world Is crippling to a open mind; It might be in innocence's but it's foolish and dishonest!
Posted by Troy deen on December 10,2009 | 06:34 PM
What about Vince WWE owner. I hate him
Posted by Kendall on December 10,2009 | 06:34 PM
Christmas trees came to England many, many decades after Cromwell turned to dust. Try Germany as the area that the Christmas Trees came from. Someone needs to do a bit more historic facts.
Posted by C. Barber on December 10,2009 | 06:19 PM
It would be appropriate to credit the photo shown with this article as a photo of actor Edward Arnold playing the role of Diamond Jom Brady in the 1935 film "Diamond Jim"...
Posted by KB on December 10,2009 | 06:05 PM
Funny thing about the Puritans,they left england to escape persecution. Once they got here they started persecuting.
Posted by Noah Cooke on December 10,2009 | 06:04 PM
For Grinch number 4, was it impossible to find an photograph of the real "Diamond Jim" Brady, instead of using a publicity photo of actor Edward Arnold who portrayed Brady in the 1935 Universal Picture DIAMOND JIM BRADY?
Posted by Anthony L'Abbate on December 10,2009 | 05:58 PM
BAH HUMBUG!!
Posted by on December 10,2009 | 05:57 PM
Please take the coast guard off the grinch list. They are there to protect our waters.
Posted by Michael Roest on December 10,2009 | 05:56 PM
Keep Christ in Christmas.
God's Gift... Merry Christmas
God Bless Us, Everyone!
Merry Christmas!
Posted by Brian S. Crane on December 10,2009 | 05:55 PM
So glad you added this Larry. I was going to do the same. I am happy to see there was at least one other person who paid attention in history class.
Posted by mike on December 10,2009 | 05:50 PM
Number 8 on your Grinch list, Oliver Cromwell, was not in fact overthrown. He died in his bed of natural causes in 1659 as Lord Protector of England, with his Puritan Commonwealth seemingly intact.
His weak-willed son, Richard Cromwell, who succeeded Oliver as Lord Protector, was driven out of power. Generals Monck and Churchill (later Duke of Marlborough) switched sides to support the return of King Charles II in 1659-1660. Charles duly returned and was crowned King of England, a title he had in fact held since his father, King Charles I, was beheaded under Cromwell.
Posted by Larry Slater on December 8,2009 | 03:21 PM