GrinchToday, the Grinch has one more thing to crank about: He’s been banned from the Halverson home. It wasn’t my doing, censor queen that I am. Two of my sons did the evicting. The third cried miserably because he wanted the grumpy green guy to stay.

Here I was thought I was doing something fun for my three almost-five-year-olds. Believing the classic Christmas cartoon would be a right for the boys this year, I bought the deluxe edition at Wal-Mart today. My husband had called from an adventure with the boys and informed me that they’d decided to make a fire in the fireplace when they got home. It was one of those days—cool, rainy, not so much fun to be outdoors. I heard their plan and thought to myself, “Movies go well with fires!” and I rushed out to score a flick.

I won’t go into my movie philosophy right now, as I’ve done that before. Suffice it to say, we’ve started venturing into the world of movies a tippy toe at a time. And because it’s Christmastime and because the boys have been dabbling with ghosts and witches and things that heretofore rendered them hysterical, I decided this might be the year to introduce them to the Grinch. He’s green and cranky, much like a witch, but ultimately he’s a fairly benign kind of scary. Perfect for their “spooky scary” experimenting. Or at least that’s what their clueless mom figured. W-R-O-N-G.

When I extracted the surprise movie from the shopping bag, the boys were quite excited. But when I put it into the DVD player and turned it on—yikes!—that excitement turned to terror in two of them. The Grinch was too scary to even look at! I rushed to turn it off. Then my third son had his extreme reaction, which was to cry. He was severely disappointed that the movie had to be turned off. Interestingly, this was the boy who started all this “spooky scary” experimenting two months ago by embracing the world of witches. grinch and garbage truckThe only thing that stopped his waterworks tonight was a promise from Daddy that the two of them would stay up and watch the movie together sometime, when his brothers went to bed.

So now, as I sit here on the couch, my boys are lined up next to me watching an entirely different video featuring fierce green things: “How’d They Build That?: Garbage Truck.” All three are happy as clams.

This Christmas, garbage trucks trump the Grinch.