todayiamadaisy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
todayiamadaisy) wrote2004-12-12 11:54 am
todayiamadaisy) wrote2004-12-12 11:54 am
Oh no!
High crime in the City by the Sea, according to the local paper. Thieves have stolen two sheep and a two metre tall wise man from the Lutheran Church's outdoor nativity scene.
I don't condone this; no, not at all (except on aesthetic grounds - if the stolen figures are anything like the remaining ones shown in the newspaper, painted on plywood by an alleged "local artist", they're hideous). But I must admit to being amused at the choice of figures. Why not take the obvious ones? It was probably just some drunken idiots stealing the figures nearest to them, but I rather like the idea of the thieves needing a couple of sheep and a third wise man to complete their own outdoor nativity. The figures apparently just stake into the ground, so they could also be used as year-round garden ornaments, I suppose. Or wooden sheep: the ideal pet.
There were a couple of things about this that made me groan with the mind-numbing predictability of it all though. The first was that it happened at all: every single year someone is on the front page of the paper complaining that a store mannequin dressed as Santa or a papier maché reindeer has been stolen from a front garden (which suggests to me that the culprit has a house full of stolen oversized decorations, carefully labelled by year). The article will be accompanied by a photo of the victims looking bereft and holding an empty stocking. And I'm sorry their Christmas decorations were stolen, I really am, but I don't want to hear about it. There are worse things in life than losing a wooden wise man.
The second thing is the punishment suggested by one of the people interviewed, a local councillor: "I hope Santa doesn't visit these people." That's just depressing. Does she not know who Santa is? Does she think she has to maintain the illusion for the benefit of the paper's readers? Or does she think that the parents of the culprit should withhold presents?
I don't condone this; no, not at all (except on aesthetic grounds - if the stolen figures are anything like the remaining ones shown in the newspaper, painted on plywood by an alleged "local artist", they're hideous). But I must admit to being amused at the choice of figures. Why not take the obvious ones? It was probably just some drunken idiots stealing the figures nearest to them, but I rather like the idea of the thieves needing a couple of sheep and a third wise man to complete their own outdoor nativity. The figures apparently just stake into the ground, so they could also be used as year-round garden ornaments, I suppose. Or wooden sheep: the ideal pet.
There were a couple of things about this that made me groan with the mind-numbing predictability of it all though. The first was that it happened at all: every single year someone is on the front page of the paper complaining that a store mannequin dressed as Santa or a papier maché reindeer has been stolen from a front garden (which suggests to me that the culprit has a house full of stolen oversized decorations, carefully labelled by year). The article will be accompanied by a photo of the victims looking bereft and holding an empty stocking. And I'm sorry their Christmas decorations were stolen, I really am, but I don't want to hear about it. There are worse things in life than losing a wooden wise man.
The second thing is the punishment suggested by one of the people interviewed, a local councillor: "I hope Santa doesn't visit these people." That's just depressing. Does she not know who Santa is? Does she think she has to maintain the illusion for the benefit of the paper's readers? Or does she think that the parents of the culprit should withhold presents?