[With apologies to Theodor Geisel
Since he could do this so very well.
I will not try to follow him to the letter
Since he could do it ever-so-much better...]

A Mean One Indeed

[The scene: a Christmas tableaux, in the Done family living room. A cheerful Christmas tree is all aglow, with wonderful presents at the base, in the gloom.]

A mighty thump is heard, a cloud of soot erupts from the fireplace, and a very scary-looking creature emerges. Little Joey Bye Done, returning from a trip to the Euphemism, stands agape as the only witness.

The creature picks himself up and shakes off another huge cloud of soot. He catches a reflection of himself in the mirror over the mantel and smiles a hideously sinister grin.

"Coal black! My favorite color!"

The creature cackles. For all the world he looks like he should be twirling a mustache, tying some poor helpless girl to some railroad tracks somewhere. He just gives off that aura, somehow.

He is obviously not magical, like Santa, who manages to go up and down millions of chimneys without the slightest flake of soot adhering to his red and white outfit.

He reaches back up into the chimney and yanks a huge bag down after him. The bag seems mostly empty, however, with just some rather sharp-looking rocky shapes at its bottom.

The apparition sidles over to the cheerfully merry Christmas tree and sneers: "Well what have we here? Inappropriate presents for underserving little boys and girls, I fear!"

He picks up the most enticing of all of these, and reads the label: "To all Americans who have diabetes, from the Democratic Party." It is not the biggest present by far, in fact it is rather small. The creature gives it a shake and announces to no one in particular: "Doesn't sound like much, probably only cost 35 bucks..." and tosses it into his own bag, lying nearly-empty on the floor.

The next present is plucked from the branches of the Christmas tree. It is legal-tender-sized envelope and it seems rather stuffed with pieces of paper. It gets just as much scorn: "'To parents everywhere...' Ha!" This quickly follows the first gift into the huge sack on the floor. "Why should parents get any money for free? I bet most of them will just spend the money on drugs anyway." A truly evil laugh burst from the hideous creature: "Haw Haw!"

He reached back down and picked up a large box, festooned with bright wrapping paper. "'To American workers, for when you or a loved one gets sick....' Oh, no, no, no, NO! We can't have that! If people get leave, they'll probably just pretend they're sick to go on hunting trips. We certainly can't have any of that sort of thing, now can we?"

He began humming a hauntingly familiar tune. His eyes lit up as he espied a present that was rather obvious, due to being shaped (under the bright paper wrap) like a small automobile. He read the tag and burst out with: "Batteries not included! We certainly can't have any fun toys like this for everyone!"

It followed the others, into his bag.

Little Joey Bye Done, who until now had just been frozen in terror at the sight of this topsy-turvy fake Santa, slowly staggered into the room. He let loose a plaintive cry: "Who are you? What are you doing?!?"

The creature drew himself up with a sneer. "I am Joe Grinchin, who are you?"

"I am Joey Bye Done, and that is our Christmas tree!"

"Ah, well, see... it's like this... I am actually Santa's cousin, who follows him around and takes away presents from all the undeserving little boys and girls... it's my job, you see?"

"I don't believe you -- you're just stealing our presents!" sobbed Joey.

"No, no -- I am saving you from these evils. See, look here..." The Grinchin picked up two similar presents, one wrapped with childish paper which showed blackboards and games and coloring books, and the other with much more sober paper which showed books and scrolls and libraries instead. "Two free years of schooling? See, that sounds like a good thing, for the little ones, but it is in fact Socialism and nothing short of a Toddler Takeover! It would just ruin your life if your mom and dad only had to pay a reasonable amount for child care and preschool. You'll thank me later, I swear! And this... two free years of community college? That would just encourage poor teens to continue school and become more educated! What a horrible thing to even contemplate!"

"But... but... that's what my parents wanted the most -- I heard them asking Santa for it, I did!"

"Oh, no, no, no -- people don't always get what they want in life, little Joey, you really need to understand that." The Grinchin tried to smile in a comforting way, but it just looked like a hideous grimace to Joey.

The Grinchin took more presents from under the tree and chucked them into his bag. "Free hearing aids for your grandpa? Glasses for grandma? Why, it would absolutely ruin their work ethic if such things did not cost a great deal of money!" The Grinchin tried to pat Joey on the head, but he wisely ducked away. So the Grinchin shrugged and swept all the other goodies under the tree into his sack with one giant motion.

"You see, I have something so much better for everyone," the Grinchin said, and he all but disappeared into his now-bulging bag. He clambered his way down to the bottom and emerged with both his hands gripping big bundles of coal.

"See, now here's a present the whole family can enjoy! Coal! For everyone! Who wouldn't want all these profitable lumps on Christmas morning? You see, I am not stealing, I am replacing these horrible gifts from the Democratic Party with some good, clean coal, straight from my own coalfields in West Virginia! And since you're up, you can say: 'Thanks, Mister Grinch' to my face."

But Joey Bye Done had already fled the room in frustration and anger. So the Grinchin gave with a mighty shrug, stuffed his sack up the chimney, and began climbing up after it. He began humming again, and then broke into song: "You're a mean one, Mister Grinchin!" His hideously cruel cackles got fainter and fainter until the room was silent once again.

The End

[Well, hopefully not... but it sure looks like, at this point...]

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant