The Grinch

The LifeNet helicopter will be flying in to Samaritan Medical Center with Santa Claus and the Grinch; they will be stopping at the hospital to visit various ...

My father and I watch dozens of Christmas movies every year. This time, I asked him why.

A distraction was watching movies with you, and I think that helped a lot. It’s a tradition to me, and I like to watch the movies, but when you were younger, my whole thing that I got excited about was buying gifts and getting up early to go Christmas shopping. I feel like we’re not missing as much as we would if we were still doing other stuff that we used to do [like the tree lightings]. I think as I get older, some of that stuff gets to me more. I don’t think I’m always enthusiastic about the whole Christmas thing and everything that goes with it. I don’t remember sitting down with the family like, “let’s go watch Christmas movies,” but I remember watching them. I feel like not everybody is as enthusiastic about Christmas as you. The rest of my family was around, but the non-religious Christmas stuff was never as much their thing as it was for my Dad and me. I remember Miracle on 34th Street, I remember some of the A Christmas Carol [adaptations]…the ones like Rudolph, Frosty, Grinch. We even had a thing where we got money one time where we got to go shopping for little gifts [for the other siblings]. Even when I went out of state for college, I was still back home almost the entire month of December, leaving plenty of time to watch holiday specials and movies together. The one tradition that has stood the test of time is our gathering to watch Christmas movies—sometimes from the day after Thanksgiving until a few days after the big day.