Giant Grinch Replaces X-mas Exhibit

The popular display attracted thousands of visitors, coming from as far as San Francisco and Sacramento, to Monte Sereno, an upscale suburb just west of San Jose. After the exhibit was featured on NBC’s “Weekend Today” last year, more than 1,500 cars prowled the cul-de-sac each night.

But this year, the merry menagerie — worth about $150,000 in custom-designed props — stayed indoors. Instead, on the manicured lawn outside the couple’s Tudor mansion stood a single tiding: a 10-foot-tall Grinch with green fuzz, rotting teeth, and sickly, beet-red eyeballs.

The Aertses erected the smirking giant to protest the couple across the street — 16-year residents who complained that the annual display was turning the quiet cul-de-sac into a Disneyesque nightmare.

Alan Aerts, who makes sure the Grinch’s spindly finger points directly to the offending neighbors’ house, says their complaints to city bureaucrats killed the exhibit, which last year raised $10,000 in donations for Toys for Tots. It also violated the Christmas spirit, he said.”

I would so easily be the guy who complained about this. The Grinch is my hero.