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**** Someone Stole The Kids Santa ****


CaliforniaDreamn

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I'm not sure if this has happened to anyone else around this time of year, but if so, can you guys please let me know how you have handled people stealing any of your Christmas displays.

We had this real cute Santa (with hair, glasses and all) that sat in a chair and when the kids come buy in the boring to catch the school bus, the usually touch it, and it will play music and ask them if they were naughty or nice. It also was animated and waved and had the cutest little dog climbing on his lap.

I can't believe that someone stole Santa! This is like a scene from the Grinch!!

I know they have ways to locate lost phones and laptops and things like that, but I sure would LOVE to have something to track it so that I could have the police walk right up to the thief's front door!

:D

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Sorry to hear your Santa was stolen.

I have one of those Santas, its my favourite piece.They can not be bought here in the UK so its quite a unique thing to have in our dsplay .

I was always afraid it might be lifted during the night so we screwed it down onto a heavy wooden pallet. I also remove his head each night after the lights go off so it wouldnt be any good to a thief headless :P I replace it early each morning so as not to traumatise the kids walking past to school:)

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HI Linda,

Thank you for the response.

That's a good idea to attach it to a heavy pallet. In our case they cut the ties that came with it but what you are suggesting would have made it much more difficult for someone to take. And I never thought of removing the head at night, that's great also.

We purchased ours a couple years ago so none of the stores close to me have it anymore, but I did find a replacement at a different store a few hours from me that I can pick up tomorrow.

I guess if a thief is really determined they will eventually take it, but if anyone tries to take the new one, they are going to really have to work hard to get it out of our yard this time.

Again, thank you so very much and Merry Christmas!

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Thank you and I agree, I really think the cameras are a great future goal.

We have such a large display now that we are definitely looking into some higher-end night vision cameras for next year.

We have one set now, but we live on a street without ANY street lights, as a matter of fact, it's almost pitch black after the Christmas lights go out. When we viewed the camera we currently have now, all we saw were shadows.

At this point, this year the best we can do is make sure to secure things down and make it more difficult for any potential thieves. But next year with the cameras and extra traditional overnight outdoor lighting, I think (and hope) we will be a lot better prepared.

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Yes, my cameras aren't the greatest either but luckily I am close to a street lamp. Maybe in the interim you could have some well placed motion sensors with lights aimed at your display or even leave a spot light on at all times.

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The original poster had sent a PM to me asking that I delete this thread because it would not be of much value. Perhaps from the first few replies that appeared to be the case but it appears that people have stepped up and subsequent replies have been productive.

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I put up temporary landscape lighting. After the show, the landscape lights come on and light up the yard. The lights are dim enough not to disturb the neighbors and bright enough for the cameras to be able to pick up more than just shadows.

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Yes, you are correct Dan.

I was feeling pretty bad yesterday after the theft.

Thank you all ever so much!! The positive comments were extremely helpful for this year, and also gave me some very good ideas for next year as well.

Again, thank you and Merry Christmas to all!

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Sorry to hear that. Nothing picks me more than hooligans that thieve from Christmas displays. Especially when that's a fairly good portion of the reason we do our displays!

Hope you find the monkey's that did it!!!
You should post something at a few of the schools and see if it makes any of the kids squirmish?

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Sorry to hear your Santa got ripped off, it's really a shame, and really very disturbing there are sick morons out there that do this kind of crap!

I'm not doing it this way this year, but previous years I attached a few spot lights to different channels (3 unused channels) that were aimed at parts of my display that I figured a thief would go for.

And then I ran an overnight sequence that turned them on at various times with a very short delay for their off times, along with also turning on those display elements at a lower (50%-75%) intensity to show that if some idiot tried to cut the cords to take anything, there would be a good chance they'd get a nice little jolt.

I also zip tie all my cords together, so if anyone tried to cut just one or two and walk away with anything, they'd still have to pull almost the entire display with them. And as much noise as that would make I;d catch them in the act.

No spotlights this year, but everything is still tied together and staked down in such a way, a thief would have to BREAK the item to take it, so it would be completely pointless for a thief to steal something they'll have to break and make worthless.

Now vandlas that destroy things just for the sake of tearing up someones display, not much you can do about them except find ol' Smith and Wesson and let it take care of those vermin or at least hold them until local law enforcement arrives!

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Well, since I was one of the "first few posts" that appear to have no value, please allow me to expound on my post.
I was in the business of hunting down people that stole things from people so I have some insight. I hate it when people destroy or steal other people's things.
A first generation iPhone is worth less that an iPod. You can pick one up for $30-40. They can be tracked on the Internet through iCloud with ios5 even without celluar. The WiFi will pick them up. It is a cheap way to put a locator on something especially if it is valuable. If it comes near a WiFi connection, it can be located. If you want to find the thief, put a locator in the item. Could be a stupid idea. I'm done now.

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texascop wrote:

Well, since I was one of the "first few posts" that appear to have no value, please allow me to expound on my post.
I was in the business of hunting down people that stole things from people so I have some insight. I hate it when people destroy or steal other people's things.
A first generation iPhone is worth less that an iPod. You can pick one up for $30-40. They can be tracked on the Internet through iCloud with ios5 even without celluar. The WiFi will pick them up. It is a cheap way to put a locator on something especially if it is valuable. If it comes near a WiFi connection, it can be located. If you want to find the thief, put a locator in the item. Could be a stupid idea. I'm done now.


I think the reason it may have been considered no value was because the item had already been stolen, so there was nothing to place the iPhone inside of. However, it was great advice despite that the item had already been heisted.

And since they did find a replacement, I would definitely follow YOUR advice of placing a cheap iPhone in there to track Santa, if someone else, or even the same thief came back and managed to steal him too.

Like they say, a thief usually always returns to the scene of the crime, and this one may be watching to see if another Santa appears just to nab him too! And then with that iPhone inside, they may get their original Santa back as well as catch the scumbag that took them and be able to prosecute the vermin they are!

Let's just hope the battery in the iPhone lasts long enough for the recovery efforts!

Maybe have some spare charged up batteries to change out in the iPhone every 2-3 days.

Too bad you can't have a cell phone automatically call 9-1-1 with a pre-recorded message when an item like that is moved off it's property.
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