The Grump Who Found Christmas

Once upon a time there was a grumpy old newspaper columnist with a bad cold and an ingrown toenail who went in search of Christmas.

It wasn’t the best of times for him, as you can imagine, because with every step he took his head pounded and his toe hurt, which did nothing to sweeten an already sour disposition.

Those who saw him grimacing and limping down the street alternated between fear and derision to see such a sight at such a time of year.

One little boy, amazed at the apparition, shouted, “Look, daddy, a troll!” but daddy laughed and explained that it was only a short person with a bad attitude.

What started the grumpy old columnist on his search was a comment he made to his wife one evening that he loved the weather. It was a night in the Santa Monica Mountains when the temperature had dipped to freezing.

“What is it you like about it,” she asked cheerfully, “the fact that the homeless are freezing or that flowers are dying?”

“They both contribute to the joy of the season,” the grumpy old columnist replied, sniffing.

She shook her head and said, “You ought to find yourself a little holiday spirit, and I don’t mean 80 proof.”

“Being able to breathe through my nose would be a good beginning,” he said, sneezing so hard the cat ran yowling from the room. Stupid cat.

But as he thought about it, the old grump decided he would go in search of Christmas, if for no other reason than it might make a column.

He began his quest where tradition demands such quests begin, in a mall. In fact, he visited four malls, despite his discomfort, in search of any single element that said Christmas was real.

It began poorly when a Santa Claus, whose mood matched the columnist’s own, shoved a lollipop in his face without saying a word, the way you might shove a bone at a dog. Not even a ho, ho, ho.

“I don’t want it,” the grump said, but the Santa kept waving the lollipop in his face with such determination, he was forced to push it away.

As the grump walked off, limping and mumbling, the Santa pursued, still holding out that crazy lollipop, if you can believe it.

This so annoyed the old troll that he spun to face Santa and, as little children gaped in horror, yelled, “I don’t want your damned sucker!”

Well, sir!

Just as it seemed the grump and the stupid old Santa might end up cursing and rolling around on the floor, a security guard hurried up and said to Santa, “The gentleman don’t want no sucker.”

“The gentleman don’t want this fool anywhere near him,” the grump said.

“He can go to hell,” Santa shouted.

Then Mr. Christmas stalked off in one direction and the troll limped off in another, as the security guard shrugged and the little children stared.

The grump didn’t give up. He tried shopping, because buying is the essence of the holiday. But, alas, he couldn’t get the attention of a pubescent clerk on the phone with a friend.

“What a god,” she was saying, in dreamy reference to a boy whose appeal drifted somewhere between Tom Cruise and David. “He goes, ‘you wanna party,’ and I go ‘why not?’ and he goes ‘you got wheels?’ and I go . . .”

The grump listened to all this as he stood by the cash register waiting for Miss Teentalk to get off the phone so he could buy a silk scarf for his wife.

His nose was beginning to run, but he had nothing to wipe it with. It didn’t seem right, even to a grump, to use his wife’s present, so he began to sniff loudly.

He had hoped that, in addition to its primary purpose, the sniffing would hint to Miss Teentalk she should do her job. When that didn’t work, the grump shouted, “Damn it, girl, hang up!”

She just stared at him, apparently not understanding the meaning of “hang up,” so he threw the scarf on the counter, said to hell with it and went on home.

As it turned out his very good friend Nicole, who is 4, was waiting for him.

“You’ve got a cold, grampy,” she said, which is what she calls him, and ran into the kitchen to get him a lemon. Daddy had told her lemons were good for colds.

Then she turned on the Christmas tree lights and gave the grump a hug and said “Now you’ll feel better!”

The old troll held that little girl for a long time. She was as fresh and sweet as an early spring, and the blinking lights of the tree turned the room into her fairy kingdom.

When she went off to play, he sat by the tree with the lemon in his hand and knew at last he had found Christmas where it must always dwell, in the giving heart of a child.

And the grump, faced with a reality as simple as a hug, smiled.