Christmas 2007

Christmas was shaping up to be a wonderful time. Everything was going well with family, friends and pets. The shopping had been finished and the dinner fixings had all been purchased. All was well until Christmas Eve morning when we discovered that our Christmas display had been vandalized. The whole street's display actually. Our big animated Mama Polar Bear and and animated seal had been stolen. We called the police and they took a report for insurance. Gilroy police came to the house 10 minutes after we made the call for such a small crime. After the police left, we got a call from the policeman that he saw some decorations lying by the side of the road down by the farm. We quickly got in the truck and went down there. It was the bear, crushed by a car, and the head of the seal. We were heart broken. We spend 20 minutes looking for the seal body and found other's decorations along the way. All damaged. All had had the wires cut. So we lost some of our treasures for good. On the positive side, we immediately went to the store to find something to replace the damaged decorations with and got fantastic deal on a set of set to music Christmas tree displays. It was perfect timing for something we had wanted to buy in the first place and we would not have gotten it otherwise. We paid a price though by losing a few memories.

It bothers me too about this. It is not unusual for decorations to be stolen by someone less fortunate to have something of their own. That kind of defeats the Christmas spirit though. I can understand that. Sometimes, something is stolen to sell in a flea market or out of the back of a car. This though was worse. A couple of kids, drinking beer, we found the bottles, running along and wantonly destroying peoples displays and happiness. Apparently it happened a lot in other places that night. We're speculating it might have been a gang initiation thing or something. Too many incidents happening at the same time. All destruction, not stealing. This is what our kids are growing up to be? Destroyers of happiness? Very troubling and sad. We spent a sleepless night wondering if they were going to strike again. Kind of like a terror attack on a much much smaller scale. No loss of life or injuries but fear and worry none the less.

The rest of Christmas was wonderful. Got to talk to family. Got most of the presents we wanted and the meal was delicious. Quiet but fullfilling of a need to experience abd enjoy the Christmas spirit. It's time to rest and reflect. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. God Bless.