Grinch Alert! 11 TV Characters Who Hate Christmas
Ebenezer Scrooge isn’t the only one who thinks the holiday spirit is humbug, nor is the Grinch the only one who snarls with a sneer whenever December 25 is practically here.
On television, plenty of characters find Christmas crass, grating, or downright disturbing. They’d probably prefer their long winter’s naps to take them straight through to December 26.
Here is a list of Christmas critics from the small screen — or, at least, those who hated on the holiday before their hearts grew three sizes!
Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory
In the episode “The Santa Simulation,” Sheldon (Jim Parsons) explains his hatred for Christmas during a yuletide Dungeons & Dragons game, recalling a time he met Santa in a mall when he was five. “You asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I told you, ‘My Pop-Pop,’ because that was the year my grandfather died,” he tells the D&D game’s Santa character. “I missed him, and I wanted him back. … Instead, I got Lincoln Logs.”
Alex Keaton, Family Ties
“A Keaton Christmas Carol” finds Alex (Michael J. Fox) coming home in a Scrooge-like huff. “Take it easy with the ‘Merry Christmases,’ will you, ma?” he asks mom Elyse (Meredith Baxter). “This holiday is a silly, sentimental farce. It’s phony. People just pretend to have this so-called Christmas spirit.”
John Munch, Homicide: Life on the Street
In “All Through the House,” Munch (Richard Belzer) resents having to run “a virtual gauntlet of Christmas cheer” — e.g. “bargain-hungry shoppers, mewling kids, carols blasting from diabolically hidden loudspeakers” — on his way to work. “I hate Christmas because you’re supposed to feel happy at Christmas, and if you don’t feel happy, then you think something’s wrong with you, which makes you even unhappier,” he tells his colleagues.
Adrian Monk, Monk
The episode “Mr. Monk and the Man Who Shot Santa Claus” reveals Monk (Tony Shalhoub) has had Christmas trauma since at least 1964. “Mom was sick. Dad was Dad,” he tells his psychiatrist, recalling the holiday season of that fateful year. “Christmas morning, I got one gift, a walkie-talkie. … Not a pair. Dad said I only needed one because I didn’t have any friends.”
Perry Cox, Scrubs
When Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) tells J.D. (Zach Braff) he hates Christmas in “My Own Personal Jesus,” the latter doc pictures him as a Grinch delivering a Seussian diatribe. “I don’t like bambersnoodles, I loathe dinkerwallows, I hate snagtumgopers — I say, do you follow?” Cox the Grinch says in J.D.’s imagination.
Frank Costanza, Seinfeld
As fans learn in “The Strike,” Frank (Jerry Stiller) hates Christmas’ commercial and religious aspects, so he has devised a new holiday — “a Festivus for the rest of us” — much to the dismay of son George (Jason Alexander). Traditions of Festivus include feats of strength, the airing of grievances, and putting up an aluminum pole in lieu of a Christmas tree.
Sue Sylvester, Glee
Sue Sylvester often just can’t deal with all the cheerios on Christmas. In “A Very Glee Christmas,” she tampered with the gift exchange to steal all the presents. In “Previously Unaired Christmas,” she plotted to undermine the glee club in a tree contest.
There are moments of redemption for her in the holidays. She is the one who gets the club to perform at a homeless shelter, and she also gives a needy family a surprise tree and gifts. But when she’s anti-Christmas, she’s very anti- indeed
Oscar the Grouch, Sesame Street
“I hope their Christmas trees get termites,” Oscar the Grouch (Caroll Spinney)
says of his festive neighbors in the special episode “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street,” before singing about his contempt for the holiday. (Example lyric: “Here comes Santa, girls and boys / So who needs that big, red noise? / I’ll tell him where to put his toys / I hate Christmas.”)
Britta, Community
Since Britta doesn’t believe in God, she certainly doesn’t believe in celebrating the birth of Jesus. She is happy to make her displeasure with the seasonal festivities known, no matter how merry her contemporaries might be trying to be.
Squidward Tentacles, SpongeBob SquarePants
Squidward (Rodger Bumpass) sulks in “The SpongeBob Christmas Special” when SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenny), Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), and Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) pen letters to Santa Claus. “I can’t believe anybody would celebrate a holiday where a jolly prowler breaks into your house and leaves gifts,” the sullen cephalopod seethes.
Richard “Hutch” Hutchinson,Starsky & Hutch
In the episode “Little Girl Lost,” Hutch (David Soul) lets on that he didn’t get Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) a Christmas present. “This year for the first time I decided I was not going to get caught up in that phony wave of euphoric sentimentalism, orchestrated by the clanging of cash registers,” he explains. “It’s the principle of the thing. You know, I get so sick and tired people walking up to me — people I don’t even know — and wishing me a merry Christmas. I mean, 51 weeks out of the year, they’d rather take your head off or run you down with their car.”
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