It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!

The original (best) How the Grinch Stole Christmas airs tonight on channel 4 ( ABC ) at 8.

The Christmas holiday seasons of my childhood began the same way each year … My little brother, Scotty, and I would plop down in front of the television (back in the days when TVs came built into consoles large enough to accommodate record players and wet bars), clad in our fuzzy footie jammies (back in the days before flame-retardent materials were commonplace and everybody smoked everywhere, even around children clad in flammable full-front-zip-hope-you-don’t-have-to-pee-before-morning pjs that came complete with “footies” crafted from the slickest stuff on Earth which made outrunning the inevitable inferno a total impossibility) and prepared ourselves to be scared spitless.

I’m not sure if it was the two-sizes-too-small heart (even back then we knew of our family’s hideous cardiac history and feared the Grinch might terrify us with an unscripted myocardial infarction) or the thought that no matter how good we were (the Whos were, by all measures, the most perfect creatures in existence and we were, truth be told, cute kids who knew how to twist the truth when we got caught) a scraggy green guy might shimmy down the chimney and make us pay for our sins. Whatever the reason, Scotty and I would stick it out, practically peeing ourselves in fear, because the program always came on after our regularly scheduled bedtime (back in the days when staying up late did not automatically make for an oh-my-god-what-have-I-done morning).

Today I’m a big girl who chooses her own sleepwear (sometimes flammable, always footless) and sets her own bedtime. And although some years I wish the networks would run these specials a little earlier in the evening to lessen the chance of a mid-program nap, I always tune in. Yes, by now I know everything comes out all right in the end. The Grinch is actually a pretty good guy. But I just keep hoping, by some Christmas miracle, there will come a day when that emotionally damaged dog, Max, turns around and pokes his tied-on antler right into the Grinch’s bony green ass.

Happy Who-lidays!