Decorate Your Home In A Grinch Theme This Year

​A friend recently told me, "I'll be decorating my home in a grinch theme this year, but I do love Christmas - I promise. I love the grinch, though, because I can relate to him very deeply with how he shares emotion and how I used to and still sometimes do. Like he's full of love, he just has trouble showing it and due to how I grew up, I legit get it."

I found that beautiful. Stunning. That one would decorate their home at Christmas in the decor of a Christmas reminder that what might not look and feel like love this time of year is not always - or even often - a sign that love is absent.

I watched The Grinch last night with my friend's heart and home in mind. I was awed that nearly 60 years ago the writers of The Grinch were writing the Christmas decorations into the future heart of my friend.

“Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot,
But the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not.”

It seems quite simple on the surface, doesn't it? That Whoville liked Christmas and the Grinch did not. But the story of The Grinch is there is much more to the story than Christmas like and dislike. Like a challenging childhood experience in Whoville. Or in YOU-ville.

And the willingness of humanity to be curious about the much more to the story is one of the more truly amazing things about humanity. Maybe that willingness is somehow the main point - the main gift - of Christmas?

For the baby in a manger who arrived to bring great joy to all did so mostly by entering the lives of those who struggled to find or be any joy at all. The baby in the manger showed up to tell each of us who are time and again prone to having the heart of a grinch - I legit get it.

I see you.

And maybe there is room for us all to do that for others this Christmas season. To know that joy and love don't come as easy for some as they do for others. To know that without judging and to know that with deep curiosity - compassion - empathy.

Maybe this year, next to the Santa who delivers the gifts, we place a small grinch to remind us that not everyone knows how to give and receive those gifts. Joy and love.

Or shoot, go all out and decorate the whole house in a grinch theme 😊❤️.

Maybe someone in your life this year needs to hear some of the most magical Christmas words there are: "I legit get it."