Four Ways to Be a Grinch Today
Or is it being a little helper?
1. Leave the dishes in the sink
Mothers carry the lion’s share of holiday demands: whether you celebrate and are taking on all the effort of making the holiday ~*magical*~, or you’re not and you’re on point for childcare while schools are out, or you’re traveling and you were the one who was making the (packing) list and checking it twice—you, Mom, have probably picked up more of the load this time of year.
So, if you spot Dad sprawled on the couch watching football while you’re wrangling the kids and trying to tackle the sink full of dirty dishes—don’t do it. Don’t silently seethe amidst the suds and grease. Just…walk away. Leave it for him to do after the game. Leave the kids with him too during the game, if you’re feeling extra burnt out.
2. Skip the presents
It’s the most consumerist time of the year, with American anticipated to spend upwards of $1 trillion dollars over this holiday season. And it’s not all the spending itself that’s the issue as much as it is what it’s spent on–stuff, stuff, and more stuff. Buying things and returning things is indisputably contributing to the destruction of our planet, yet it’s a magnetic force: in part because American capitalism necessitates you buying things, while social media and the commodification of your attention has quite literally programmed you to want more and believe you need more.
This applies to any holiday you celebrate—there are gifts like time and experiences and home-cooked food that we should celebrate and normalize as being gifts of value, too, instead of an item that will likely end up in a landfill in a few years’ time.
3. Go to work instead
(If you have to). As physicians, I can count more Christmases my husband and I have worked than ones we haven’t—and many voluntarily, as we don’t celebrate the holiday. Our first full year after becoming parents, we didn’t have childcare and I remember dropping my kid off to be in the call room with my husband at his hospital, rounding at my hospital, then picking her up, putting her down for a nap, and working on my notes–oh what fun that was!
The reality is that not everyone gets to be with their families today–airport personnel, firefighters, paramedics, doctors, nurses, environmental and food service staff at hospitals: there are many essential services continuing today. Hopefully you don’t encounter any of them, but if you do, don’t forget to share your appreciation (or just thank your healthcare workers by not pushing anti-public-health conspiracy theories).
4. Remind everyone who will or won’t listen about Palestine
Everything else on this list pales in comparison to this: there has not been a silent night in Gaza for the last fourteen months. Airstrikes have fallen every single night and children have been killed every single day for the last fourteen months in gruesome ways, and no amount of social media awareness or protesting has changed American foreign policy, despite Israel’s violations of international law and its own soldiers admitting to their war crimes.
Perhaps the most tragic irony is that those celebrating Christmas today are celebrating a man whose homeland is being destroyed and his own people erased. This will be one of the biggest stains on humanity in this century and any nation being able to go rogue in this way should alarm us all.
So, don’t be afraid to go forth and be a grinch today—in fact, maybe you’re not being a grinch at all, but a little helper instead.
You’ve brought up some incredibly important points about the imbalance and burdens people face during the holidays, from domestic labor and consumerism to the sacrifices made by essential workers. Your argument about shifting our focus from the superficiality of the season to deeper values like justice and compassion resonates strongly. Most strikingly, your emphasis on the tragedy in Gaza is a powerful reminder of the moral responsibility we all share in addressing global injustices. Your call to use this time for reflection and action is both compelling and necessary.
That said, I believe there’s more to unpack regarding why social media campaigns have failed to shift American foreign policy. It’s not just the platforms themselves—it’s the fact that these campaigns haven’t been representative of the U.S. electorate. Polls show that over 60% of Americans support the current US government policy, leaving politicians little incentive to advocate for change. Perhaps this holiday season should also be a time to strategize on how to bring the truth to those who don’t yet see this tragedy for what it is. The work needs to focus on helping that 60% of the population equate the suffering in Gaza with the same level of humanity they’ve historically recognized in other crises. That, I think, is where the most meaningful change could start.