Parents are going viral by dressing up as the Grinch and terrorizing their children before Christmas

• Parents are going viral by dressing up as the grinch and terrifying their children.
• Some of the videos have amassed tens of millions of views.

Parents are pranking their children by dressing up as the Grinch and stealing their presents, and there's an entire TikTok subgenre of Grinch-themed videos called "#grinchtok," which has a cumulative 257 million views.

One of the most popular videos has over 37 million views and shows an adult in a green Grinch outfit walk into a room and start wagging a finger at two children on a couch. The kids start wigging out, screaming at the person and throwing pillows at them, and one kid tries to subdue the Grinch with a punch. The costumed person eventually manages to take their presents from under their Christmas tree while the children sob.

In another viral video, a person wearing a Grinch outfit dances into a room and sends two children howling and running in the opposite direction. The clip has over 14 million views and 2.5 million likes.

The YouTuber and TikToker blesiv, whose content revolves around challenges and vlog-style videos, also uploaded a clip to TikTok showing him pranking his little brother with a Grinch outfit.

"These are my gifts now," the creator snarls at one point as he shoved gifts into a bag while his brother could be heard sobbing.

At the end of the video, the boy tries to give the Grinch a hug, but the Grinch begins running after his little brother, terrifying the kid. The comments on the video are mostly positive, but there was also a contingent of users questioning why he leaned into the act so hard.

There was a similarly mixed reaction to a video uploaded by a family showing a Grinch-costumed person grabbing a boatload of a child's gifts and sprinting out of their house. The camera holder could be heard laughing while a kid screamed in terror.

"We like to scare the kids for fun in this family," reads the video description, which has garnered over 400,000 views.

"And this is why therapists will always have jobs," a top comment said.