How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957) was a book by Dr. Seuss. Inspired by its success, the construction company Construction Company Enterprises Ltd. decided to cash in and rip off the work.

Thus, consumers had the joys of How the Winch Stole Christmas (1969, first edition). Its launch was met with much cynicism and dreadful reviews, but the company refused to back down from the concept and, ultimately, launched second (1971), third (1974), fourth (1980), and fifth (1983) editions before the company went into administration in 1986.

The Effectiveness of Heavy-Duty Machinery in How the Winch Stole Christmas

“Then the Winch thought of something it hadn’t before! What if Christmas, it thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more!”

The winch-based tale of Christmas isn’t the most compelling read. Indeed, winches in general don’t command many column inches. Perhaps this was the big flaw of the Construction Company Enterprises Ltd. in not recognising they’re a bit boring.

Regardless, the company spent many millions on the various editions over the years. All under the belief it was excellent publicity for the UK firm, which often suffered a drop off of work requests over the rainy winter period. Former CEO Geoffrey Winch (ironically surnamed) said in a 1990 interview with the BBC:

“We commissioned the work with this hippy who’d done album covers for psychedelic bands in the 1960s. That was for the 1969 edition, but the stakeholders hated that look and didn’t want to associate with psychotic communists, so we hired a hard-lining far-right maniac for the 1971 edition. That made the winch too unstable and we got many of those banned from councils across the UK. Eventually, for the third edition, we hired a noted libertarian illustrator who made the winch out to have free will. Didn’t make any sense, but that’s the one the stakeholders ended up loving and so it was called Dennis and we had our company mascot.”

Dennis was despised and distrusted by the wider public, but was continuously loved by Construction Company Enterprises Ltd.’s stakeholders up until the final 1983 edition.

As for the plot of the worked, it changed from one edition to the next. The 1969 original was about the winch attending Woodstock ’69 and helping to erect the stage for the attending commie hippies. Subsequent changes to the narrative saw Dennis working in busy city centres, building skyscrapers, and stealing Christmas trees.

Construction Company Enterprises Ltd. was accused of being anti-Christmas for the plot of thieving the trees. Former CEO Geoffrey Winch told the BBC in 1991:

“Yeah, that plot point was an error. It didn’t really capture the Christmas spirit, did it? But we were young and foolhardy and went ahead anyway, even though the final edition of the work only sold twelve copies.”

Sadly, former CEO Geoffrey Winch was crushed to death in August 1992 by a stampeding herd of goats. The remaining mysteries surrounding How the Winch Stole Christmas went to his grave (and no winch-based system will be able to remove them).

£300 Million to Clear the Reputation of Winches

Following the closure of Construction Company Enterprises Ltd., in 1987 the UK government invested £300 million into clearing the name of all UK-based winch systems. As a government official stated:

“One is disgusted to the core that a rogue company like this could cause so much damage, so much harm, so much detrition and defilement to the construction, that one believes in may take a thousand years to right the wrongs beset upon us by some rogue creatives. To note, winches DO NOT steal at Christmas. If anything, one has observed they GIVE back aplenty and if you WORK HARD ENOUGH you shall bask in the fruits of thine labour.”

Ironically, the day after the statement a major winch operation in London failed and caused £100,00 worth of damage in Kensington. The UK government responded by reducing the £300 million budget to £10 million.