Students at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, produced an entertaining and poetic parody short based on Dr Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas narrated by Lizzie Ferrazza and starring the school’s mascot and hundreds of students at a rally without any actual presents.
And while we certainly take this opportunity to recognize the creative gifts in young people across the nation, we would be remiss not to acknowledge another Christmas amid a pandemic with hospitals filling and, in some cases, overwhelmed.
Our politics—or perhaps our beliefs—have created a situation where about 15 percent of the nation’s adults refuse to get vaccinated. As a result, the surge of the omicron variant has forced many health care workers to give up their holiday in order to treat Covid patients who are dangerously ill.
So while the Christmas spirit, even without gifts, has been found at Hersey and elsewhere, the spirit of celebrating with families has once again been denied to caring professionals in the health care field, in part due to the refusal of some adults to get a shot.
Kids are generally more resilient than adults and don’t have much to worry about with the omicron variant. But their families, especially those family members who have dedicated their lives to caring for sick people, once again have to sacrifice their family celebrations to care for unvaccinated people.
