WAHOO, Neb (KMTV) — You might know it as the town of Wahoo, but around the holidays the small Saunders county city transforms itself into its own Holiday alter-ego.
“We chose to not let Grinch steal Christmas, as in COVID. So we had Cindy Lou Hoo visit a lot of businesses and last year our creative team came up with #Ishipyounot in an effort to keep people shopping local. This year we decided to see about Wahooville,” said Theresa Klein with the Wahoo Chamber of Commerce.
But something strange has happened with this year’s holiday tradition.
In the last week, nearly a dozen sightings of a strange green man have been reported all over town.
A man that the residents of Wahooville have dubbed the Grinch.
The Grinch has been spotted running through yards, peeking around corners, and even in the local flower shop.
At first local officials didn’t take the sightings seriously, even making light of the sightings in a recent PSA.
“We did a public service announcement a while back that was meant to be a joke, obviously, we had a person off camera twiddling their fingers with a green glove,” said Wahoo Police Chief Joseph Baudler.
“I'm afraid I was the hand, so I really haven’t personally seen him,” said Klein.
But the official explanation hasn’t quieted the holiday hysteria around the Wahooville Grinch.
So we headed to Wahooville to see if we could find the Grinch.
And find him we did.
At first, it was just tufts of green hair but during our interview with Chief Baudler, we caught our first glimpse of the mythic holiday creature.
“Yea there is this hysteria that there is a grinch but there is no such thing as an actual Grinch,” said Baudler.
In a moment the Grinch had disappeared, but it didn’t take long for us to find him skulking behind bushes and we even caught him kidnapping a local dog.
Despite our eyewitness evidence officials still weren’t convinced the Grinch was running around town.
It's impossible to know when or where exactly the Grinch will be next but from what we saw he seems attracted to holiday festivities, meaning next week’s Christmas in Wahooville might be your best bet to catch a sight of the strange green creature.
“I guess you’ll have to come next week, December 3rd, to our Christmas in Wahooville. We are gonna have a lighted parade and a lot of fun for families, so maybe he will show up then,” said Klein.
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