Grinch Stands Outside School With Sign Saying Santa Is Fake

In one of the more ill-advised Christmas season decisions, a man dressed up like the Grinch and held up a sign outside of an elementary school with a sign revealing the truth of one childhood's most closely guarded secrets: that Santa Claus is not real.

Sorry... I should've said spoiler alert.

As you might expect a lot of parents are not happy about this guy's attempt to harsh some grade-schoolers' Christmas mellow.

A man named David Harold Grisham stood outside of Sleepy Hollow Elementary School dressed as the Grinch (looks to me more like he went for the Jim Carrey version, not the far superior Boris Karloff animated one) while holding a sign that read "Santa is fake, Jesus is real."

How do we know it was him? Because he posted about it on Facebook.

"Hundreds of children heard the message and many parents as well. It’s very telling for a society to go this far in protecting a LIE," he wrote. "To go that far in trying to protect kids from hearing the truth. It’s no wonder our country is in trouble."

Grisham claimed that his First Amendment rights had been violated when police arrived on the scene to get him to stop harassing grade schoolers. I'm all about free speech, but that's how you want to use one of this nation's most important freedoms? Ruining Santa Claus for kids?

Let The Kids Have Santa Claus

I don't know if you recall finding out the truth about Santa Claus, but it's weirdly traumatic. I was 7 when I connected the dots enough for my mom to give up the charade.

All it took was the moment we returned a broken boombox to Sears. When I asked why she returned it under her name — despite having been gotten it from Santa — the ruse was over, Johnny.

My mom probably could've just said something, like "Well, Santa doesn't have a Sears charge because they don't have Sears at the North Pole." and I would've bought it. Perhaps I would've volleyed back something about how he still could've had one because he gets the catalog shipped to him, but the legend of Santa Claus would've stayed alive for a few more years.

Instead, I went from dropping my list to Santa in the mailbox around the corner to handing it to my dad while he sat in the recliner watching the Flyers lose. That was certainly a more efficient way to submit my list, but it was considerably less magical.

Yeah, Santa is a lie, but it's the kind of lie that really adds to the holidays for kids.

Plus, some kids are absolute hellions and the all-seeing eye of Santa Claus is the only way their parents can get them to straighten up for a month and a half.

C'mon you, Grinch. Let them have that.

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Matt is a University of Central Florida graduate and a long-suffering Philadelphia Flyers fan living in Orlando, Florida. He can usually be heard playing guitar, shoe-horning obscure quotes from The Simpsons into conversations, or giving dissertations to captive audiences on why Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.