How the Grinch Stole Christmas is just like A Christmas Carol (the one with the three ghosts) in that the moral is painfully obvious. The flawed main character is overdramatized, and at the end they have a distinct change of heart (in the Grinch's case, literally). It makes it easy for children to understand and appreciate the moral value of the film.
However, I think that if we look a little deeper we can extract another lesson. How the Grinch Stole Christmas perhaps, is about a little bit more.
I find the characterization of the "whos" to be very important to the Grinch's opinion of them. The grinch looks nothing like the whos, and lives totally separate from them. Who are they? They're just whos, unknowns, things without names (except Cindy-lou-who, who was no more than two). Besides the gifting of presents at the end as well as the feast, the only encounter between the Grinch and the whos is the scene with Cindy-lou who. Resembling a cross between an alien and a lightbulb, Cindy-lou acts completely out of childlike kindness. The Grinch's evil plot and maniacal actions turn to fear at the sight of this little girl. Finding a compromise, he decides to lie to Cindy-lou and get her a glass of water before stealing the Christmas tree. In his first real encounter with a who in some time, the Grinch is forced to re-assess his thinking, and justify stealing the holiday joy from a little girl. When the Grinch learns the true identity of the whos instead of basing his opinion on what he hears (the awful noise and singing), he starts to sympathize with them. Although the obvious moral is that Christmas isn't about material possessions, the movie explores the concept of judging other people who you don't even know.
To be fair, the noise that the whos create on Christmas morning is completely unjustifiable. He should have replaced their drumsticks with padded ones and stuffed cotton in all their bells and instruments.
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