"He went over to those candy canes, stole the 6-foot big bird from there," said Ken Boris, who woke up Sunday morning to find some of his favorite Christmas decorations gone from his Village of Hamburg home.
"I have a real life Grinch living in the Village of Hamburg on Route 62... it's odd," said Boris.
Odd, but unfortunately, not unusual for Boris, who's been decorating his house on Pierce Avenue every holiday season for over a decade. But for the past few years, thieves have been taking little by little away from his tradition, which takes over a month to put together.
"There's no reason for it," said Boris. "I mean, it's not bothering you, it's not doing anything. It just tries to bring smiles to everybody in the neighborhood."
This time around, stealing over $300 worth of decorations. Decorations that he says altogether total up to $20,000.
"It's a tradition that I've been doing for so long, and it's been a part of the neighborhood," said Boris. "I want to continue doing this. I don't want to stop. I like doing it, I want to always add more, but if it keeps happening I can't keep doing it. I can't keep affording it."
Which is why he plans on getting security cameras installed, so that this Christmas nightmare doesn't happen again.
But just minutes away from the house, at Memorial Park, stands a nativity protected with chicken wire.The wire used to not be there a couple of years ago, but that quickly had to change.
"We've had the baby stolen a couple of times out of it," said David Nyhart, who helps put up the Village of Hamburg nativity. "We found the Three Kings on somebody's front lawn, somebody took them out."
While taping boxes together at his job at the Lind-Hart Mini Ship, Nyhart remebered the time pieces from the 60-year-old nativity started to disappear.
"I don't know why people do things like that," said Nyhart. "It's a shame that we have to take precautions like that."
Nyhart also said they added lights to keep the nativity illuminated at night. And for Boris? He's reached out to police, who say they'll increase patrol in his area.
