Christmas Crime

Christmas and the holiday season in general have a lot of associations for many people. One of them isn't usually crime, though. At least not until your Santa is snatched or your Frosty is stabbed, or worse: you come home, as I did, to find that every gift under your tree is gone. It was several years ago and I had wrapped gifts I bought for friends and family and placed them under the tree, meaning to leave them there only until I had a chance to mail them. That chance never came, though. Nothing else in the apartment appeared to have been touched. Just the gifts. I hope the thieves liked the toaster I got for my cousin. It was a fancy one with a special toastiness sensor which she had expressed a longing for because of her bagel addiction.

I'm far from alone in having been the target of a Christmas crime. Every year around the holidays police start getting the calls reporting Christmas-specific crimes. Some of the crimes are pretty strange too. Last year the New York Times reported that 32 plastic Jesus figures had been stolen from nativities around the city and left on one woman's front yard. The Catholic League, which keeps track of nativity abuse has made statements that it considers these particular Christmas crimes 'hate crimes.' Apparently they are pretty common.

I no longer live in the same area I did when I was hit by Christmas crime, but last year my neighbor, who had a near life-sized Santa, sleigh and the full compliment of reindeer on his front lawn awoke one morning to find Santa spray painted black and Rudolph missing. The reindeer was later located down the street by police, but this neighbor has sworn his Christmas decorations won't come out for any future holiday seasons. According to the police men who answered my neighbors complaint about his vandalized Christmas display, they had answered several calls of that nature and it was just after Thanksgiving, so they expected to answer quite a few more when the Christmas crime season really kicked off.

Christmas Lights

Credit: oimax

Copyright: oimax (via flickr)