If I meet somebody who lives near me, and they want to know which house is mine, all I have to say is “It’s the Grinch House.”

I do have a little tiny dog. But the house is not green. I don’t live on a hill above Whoville. It is not populated by a round-bellied, little, green Grinch. (At least I’m not admitting the wife describes me this way).

But this time of year I do have a 3-foot-high, wooden Grinch in my front yard.

My neighbor makes it memorable.

He has been collecting every cheap Christmas light string Walmart has offered since 1995. Every year a new inflatable shows up. In 2022, he added a 6-foot elf of Will Ferrell.

Every square inch of his front yard is covered in Christmas goo. Santas, nativity scenes, Snoopy dolls, candy canes, metal deer… all thrown together like so many rows of corn. Powered by yards of extension cords and overloaded outlets.

He starts putting out the Holiday glitter right after Halloween. Most of it is out the weekend after Thanksgiving. Everyday he is out there putzing with something — duck taping holes, fixing broken lights, re-aligning displays to their imaginary straight lines. He can’t even count how many hours it takes.

But nobody except us can really see everything he has.

He parks two delivery trucks, various pickup trucks and all 4 of the family cars directly in front of his holiday display.

“It keeps people from stealing ’em,” he said in some half-assed logic that only he understands.

All the lights lead west to a single string, that crosses the divide of our property lines, wraps itself around our shoestring Acadia tree and falls down to the wooden Grinch sneaking away from their house like he is just starting his annual steal.

For a reason not known to the wife or I, the neighbor always includes a small green, reflective dinosaur decoration placed strategically behind the Grinch to look like he’s sniffing its ass.

We can put the wooden Grinch up in 5 minutes. The neighbor does the rest with his light strand and ass-sniffing mini-T-rex.

As the cars drive by on the street, the Grinch is the only thing they can see with an unobstructed view. They slow. They stop and they point. Eventually, they can reach an angle to look back to the East to get the joke.

It’s the kind of thing that sticks with them.

For all his work, my neighbor’s house is known as the one “next to the Grinch House.”

Sorry, not sorry, dude.

See for yourself…