Anchorage

Meet Anchorage’s Xtratuf-wearing Grinch for hire

For many, the upcoming holidays are about home-cooked meals, winter weather and Santa Claus. But this year, Anchorage resident Klynt Yardley is bringing a different holiday figure to life: the Grinch.

The Grinch, with his distinctive stringy green fur and furrowed, frowning countenance, is a fictional Dr. Seuss character who dresses up like Santa to steal presents (and Christmas) from his neighbors in Whoville. But in the end, he turns into a lovable, grade A grump.

“I am not really a grouch, kind of more of a happy-go-lucky personality,” Yardley said. “I make a much better nice Grinch than a mean Grinch.”

Yardley and his wife, Leah Johannessen, were visiting family in Utah earlier this month when Johannessen thought it’d be fun for the Grinch to show up and spend some time with the kids, passing out candy canes and taking photos.

Yardley was volunteered for the job, and the Grinch suit they bought online came home with them to Anchorage. The shoes for the costume were lost in transit, so in true Alaska form, Yardley is an Xtratuf-wearing Grinch. (He even has a dedicated Instagram page: Alaskan Grinch.)

“My wife and I, we just kept talking about how much fun that was and how much the kids loved it,” Yardley said.

Dressing up as the Grinch has proven to be a hit in plenty of other places, and many people have posted videos online of their Grinches stealing presents, ruining family parties and smirking the entire time under a sea of children’s tears.

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Johannessen posted in an Anchorage Facebook group that Yardley had been “thriving being the Grinch” for their family and friends and wanted to extend the service to people in town. For $25, Yardley will show up to your home, work or private event dressed as the Grinch, and act naughty or nice, for 30 minutes.

Requests started flooding into Johannessen’s inbox, and the next morning she received another 30 or so messages requesting the Grinch’s services.

To transform into the holiday curmudgeon, Johannessen made Yardley watch the 2000 film “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” — twice — and practice before his first performance.

All that work paid off. Yardley’s Grinchiness was palpable after he put on his gloves, with straggly green fur stretching well beyond his fingertips. On his mask, comically untidy eyebrows arch over beady yellow eyes above the deep-set grooves of a perpetual frown. Hunched over and somewhat maniacal, Yardley has tiptoed, lurked and smirked his way to local infamy.

Reactions to Yardley’s Grinch have varied. Only a few of the younger kids have cried. Most have been “super friendly,” he said, even offering the Grinch a candy cane and stories from their day.

Yardley and Johannessen are donating a portion of their Grinch money to a local family to help them with their holiday gifts this year.

Emily Mesner

Emily Mesner is a multimedia journalist for the Anchorage Daily News. She previously worked for the National Park Service at Denali National Park and Preserve and the Western Arctic National Parklands in Kotzebue, at the Cordova Times and at the Jackson Citizen Patriot in Jackson, Michigan.

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