That's asking a lot for the good-natured 28-year-old. Nick Darnell turn into the most desirable irritant of Christmas.
There are colored contact lenses and facial prosthetics, a bulging belly and at least an hour of makeup. But for the devout Christian and preternaturally resilient young actor, the real metamorphosis is psychological.
“People love to hang out with villains these days,” said the viral Grinch. simulator. “Now the world has become even darker.”
Darnell called the forest-green villain he portrays a “modern-day Santa.”
Dr. Seuss's holiday fable, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! has been a seasonal favorite since its publication in 1957 and ranks among the most popular and profitable of the author's iconic rhyming picture books.
The story's brash and brash anti-hero has also graced Christmas trees and school library shelves for generations. His horny forelocks and pathological refusal to assimilate have led some critics to call The Grinch ambiguous anti-Semitic, but these concerns have been largely obscured by years of nostalgia.
Experts say 2025 will mark the Grinch's rise from Christmas actor to Christmas star. Now he's supplanting Kris Kringle in store windows, on social media and at holiday gatherings.
Unlike Santa, who walks around during the holidays, Grinches twitch, pout, and scream in children's faces. Compilations of their antics on YouTube and TikTok regularly receive millions of views.
“I do what people think,” Darnell said of the role. “I'm not reserved.”
Despite the Grinch's anti-consumerist zeal, the market for his image has exploded in recent years.
Target advertises its “Grinchmas” and Walmart advertises its “WhoKnewVille.” McDonald's sells Grinch fries, Starbucks has a “secret menu” Frappuccino. Hanna Andersson, a popular supplier of holiday pajamas, boasts about a dozen different Grinch designs, compared to three options for Hanukkah and just one Santa design in two color options.
“I don't hold back,” Nick Darnell, 28, who portrays the Grinch, says of his role.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Ownership of the Grinch's image is guarded as jealously as a villain protects his lair: Dr. Seuss Enterprises owns the rights to the children's book, Warner Bros. Discovery is a 1966 animated television special, and Universal Studios is Jim Carrey's 2000 live-action film, which ranks among the highest-grossing Christmas films of all time.
But lookalikes, scientists and even working Santa Clauses agree: Americans' acceptance of the Grinch in 2025 goes far beyond consumerism.
“It’s definitely more popular,” said “Sert” to Taylor, the famous Los Angeles Santa behind the Worldwide Santa Network, a training camp in the art of Christmas cheer. “It's a little yin and yang. Maybe we need a little of both.”
Costume companies across Los Angeles say they are seeing overwhelming demand for The Grinch this year. At the Etoile Costume and Party Center in Tarzana, nearly half of the Christmas costume rentals are now furry green villains.
“It’s about the same as Santa,” one employee said. “Maybe 40% Grinch and the rest Santa.”
Ryan Ortiz, dressed as the Grinch, stands next to his 1969 Volkswagen bus in San Diego on December 21.
(K.S. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
Fans of the hairy sour guy seek him out for his bluntness—the opposite of Santa's aloof cheerfulness. Santa enforces his regime of goodness through lists and observation. The Grinch will get in your face and scream at you to shut up.
“[Santa]”He should be mysterious and unknown,” said Darnell's fiancée Jada Page. “He should just come at night and you should never see him.”
“I grew up obsessed with Santa Claus, not the Grinch,” Darnell said. “I was a kid waiting in the middle of the night, looking out and wondering if Santa was there. A lot of kids today don't go on that trip.”
Instead, many Generation Alpha youth turn to the Grinch for his views on “corruption, poverty or over-commercialization,” Darnell said.
“Santa is more of a divine figure, while the Grinch is more of a human being,” the actor explained. “The world is so sinister and negative. [The Grinch] tells you how things are rather than telling you everything will be fine.”
TikTok amplified the trend by introducing the infamous green villain, who matched or beat his red rival in holiday clout.
“He has auraDarnell said.
Grinch impersonator Nick Darnell said the character he plays became popular because “he has an aura.”
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Today's professional Santa Clauses are often retirees with little time on their hands and little time to spare. The Grinches, on the other hand, are more likely to be working actors like Darnell, who look with awe at Carrey's performance as an example of slapstick and acerbic reading of the character.
Still, experts say the Grinch's shine in 2025 likely has as much to do with holiday fatigue and widespread consumer pessimism as it does with the masculinity of vertical video.
“The Grinch is the other side of Christmas,” said Oscar Tellez, owner Magic Dream costume and party rentals in East Los Angeles and says he's seen an uptick in requests for The Grinch, even as overall vacation rental prices have dropped.
“Especially the Latino community, I don’t think they’re enthusiastic about the celebration,” Tellez said. “They're more concerned about what's going to happen next.”
Pop culture experts agreed.
“The economy is in deep trouble, our political situation is chaotic, there is a lot of hatred – it's no wonder we seek to express this through the embodiment of a monster like the Grinch,” said Michael M. Chemers, director of the Center for Monster Research at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
“You've seen nativity scenes popping up all over the country with Jesus figures removed and saying, 'ICE Was Here,'” he added. “I think there’s a lot of Grinchie feeling in the world right now.”
Chemers and other scholars say the Grinch's emergence as a foil for Santa is not a departure but a return to form: The Grinch is a “PG version” of the mythical Krampus, a shaggy-haired Germanic goat with a forked tongue who beats and even kidnaps naughty children while working as Father Christmas's guard.
An “organillero”, or traditional street musician, dressed as the anti-Christmas character known as the Grinch, plays on a central street in Mexico City on December 9.
(Yuri Cortes/AFP via Getty Images)
“He was called the Christmas devil,” said Jeff Belanger, author of “The Fear of Christmas,” a collection of so-called “Yuletide monsters.”
“[Krampus] represents the consequence of bad behavior, and St. Nick rewards good behavior,” he said.
Krampus likely evolved from older, pre-Christian deities, just as Christmas absorbed solstice and midwinter customs, the author explained. Christmas, which most Americans grew up with, didn't become a national holiday until after the Civil War, about a decade after Thanksgiving was officially established in 1863, he said. Around this time, Christmas trees became popular in the United States.
“In 1867, Charles Dickens came to Boston and that's when he read his 'A Christmas Carol' for the first time in America,” prompting President Ulysses S. Grant to declare Christmas a federal holiday, Belanger said. “That was really the end of the story.”
The portly, white-bearded holiday dandy came even later, his sentimental image escaping the bony St. Nicholas between Reconstruction and 1931, when Coca-Cola debuted its iconic, brandy-flushed Santa Claus.
“That’s when Christmas became purely commercial and there were no consequences,” Belanger said.
Seuss's Grinch is somewhere in the middle—nicer than Krampus and pricklier than Santa, making him the perfect avatar for a capricious and uncertain age.
Workers check Grinch inflatable boats ready for export at a factory in Suixi county in central China's Anhui province on March 19.
(Wang SK/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Grinch supporters note that at the end of the story, the villain repents and reforms, getting rid of his pathological hatred of Christmas.
“I always tell people, 'Don't you love how his heart has grown three sizes?' Taylor, the famous Santa, talked about his increasingly popular crossovers.
Others point out that the never-repentant Grinch has been marauding through schools and holiday parades, or blowing up on social media.
“Once he's rehabilitated, he's no longer fun to be around,” Chemers said.
This makes it difficult for the holiday villain to visit sick children in the hospital, as Santa's legions do every year, or to comfort children who tell him about bullying.
“The message is one of encouragement, positivity, recognition of accomplishments and encouragement to try harder,” Taylor said. “It is these wonderful messages of personal development that guide Santa Claus.”
The Grinch, on the other hand, can validate where you are without even asking you to improve.
“He can hear you and know what you're thinking because he has the same thoughts,” Darnell said of his favorite version of the character. “People want to know his heart and mind, and that's something they won't be able to ask Santa.”
