In two timeless Christmas stories from the past two centuries, misanthropes Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch show their contempt for the world’s greatest holiday season.

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843), the heartless banker Scrooge’s response to “Merry Christmas” is “Bah! Humbug!” For Scrooge, Christmas is a fraud.

In the 1957 Dr. Seuss classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, the Grinch, his heart “two sizes too small,” tries to “prevent Christmas from coming” by stealing all the presents from Whoville. Scrooge and the Grinch have much to learn, and they do, because these are stories of redemption.