I had to make a few adjustments on this. As you can tel from the sketch in the last post, I originally had Kris Kringle wielding an umbrella. However, something was not quite right. When I thought of Kringle using a weapon I thought of him smacking Mr. Sawyer with an umbrella. However, the more I thought further in the story, and especially at the end, I realized it was a cane instead.
So I debated whether to keep the umbrella (more visually interesting) or be accurate. Accuracy most always wins out. You know when you're working on something and you think "Aww, nobody will notice" Well, somebody almost always does. Years ago I was doing an illustration of a soldier for the 50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and a gentleman wrote me to let me know I had the soldier holding the wrong type rifle. SO I try to be a real stickler for accuracy.
Secondly, having the Grinch poked in the eye with an umbrella is more visually interesting than him getting poked with a cane. So I ended up moving the cane out of his eye and jamming it up his nose.
Finally, the spotlight effect was done digitally, just to frame the action.