‘Twas about 2 a.m. when deputies received word that a person or persons in a black Jeep Cherokee with one working headlight had just stolen a wicker reindeer from the King Soopers on Conifer Road. About 5 minutes later, they stopped just such a cyclopean vehicle at Barkley Road and Wolff Avenue. The 19-year-old driver explained that the wicker reindeer in the rear cargo area belonged to her mother, although she didn’t say why she was chauffeuring it around Conifer, or why her breath smelled like the barroom floor. Of the four young reindeer-nappers in the car, one went down for DUI, two were cited for underage drinking, and one got nabbed on an outstanding warrant. It may be hoped that the persecuted caribou was restored to its natural environment, whatever that may be.

The holiday took a cheerless turn when two sons called the cops on their dad. Staying with Pop at the ancestral Conifer home over Thanksgiving, they’d also paid a visit to their father’s ex-wife, which peeved old dad so much that he barred them from removing their belongings from the house. Since dad was well into the festive libations by that time, his boys asked an officer to stand by while they removed their stuff anyway. Noticing an uninvited uniform, dad became further enraged because his sons “brought the police into this.” When told the fruit of his loins were coming to get their stuff, he said “If you wanna stand by, you do what you gotta do, officer.” When the lads arrived, Pop insisted “the police can leave,” and “we’re done unless you go away.” When the officers didn’t leave, he wondered if we’re all living in a “police state.” Asked if he would go inside and retrieve one son’s insulin needles, he dutifully brought them out, then started yelling at the boy and handed them over with a decidedly unfatherly shove. “It rattled my ribcage,” the son said later. Weary of the man’s atrocious holiday spirit, the officers clapped him in irons, at which he sourly observed, “Now you’re going to take me to jail because I pushed something into my son’s chest a little harder than what you liked.” Deputies stuffed the turkey in the county coop.

When a familiar face in a white Toyota pickup stopped to fill up at a Hilltop Drive gas station, the clerk didn’t think twice about activating the pump prior to payment. When the man topped off his tank, climbed back in his vehicle and slowly drove away without settling his tab, the clerk called the cops. Given the man’s repeat-customer status and obvious nonchalance, the clerk was inclined to believe he’d merely forgotten to pay. He described the unlikely fuel pirate as a middle-aged “hippie” with long gray hair who probably lives in the area. The clerk provided a license plate number that, for whatever reason, didn’t register with the DMV, and a brief patrol of the immediate vicinity didn’t turn up the suspect vehicle. With luck, the forgetful fuel filcher will return to the scene of the crime in between 200 to 300 miles.