‘Conscience maybe caught up with them’: stolen Vibank Santa decoration returned

The Village of Vibank appears to have a Grinch who found their Christmas spirit.

Mayor Ryan Reiss said the village office bought new Christmas decorations this year because the ones the village was using were old and outdated.

But when crews went to install the new lights on Monday, one of the decorations was missing — a Santa Claus light display meant to go on a street pole.

“We had no idea what happened to it. It was basically there one moment and gone the next,” Reiss said.

While there was a lot of disappointment someone would want to take the decoration, Reiss said village officials wanted to have some fun getting the word out.

“When we put our Facebook post out, we put out a missing persons poster so to speak, asking the community to get some eyes on Santa. We called the thief the real-life Christmas Grinch. We didn’t want to make it all about negativity and trying to bring someone down,” Reiss said. “We wanted to get the word out there but at the same time try to put a positive spin on it.”

The post garnered a lot of attention on Facebook.

“I had no idea it was going to take off as fast as it did. I guess people in the community are passionate about Santa Claus,” Reiss said.

The village alerted the RCMP about the theft of the decoration — worth about $1,000 — and said the thief could be removed from the naughty list if it was returned.

Reiss said the decoration was found at the school but there was no indication who had taken it.

“I don’t know who did, why they did and, to me, it doesn’t matter. It sounds like their conscience maybe caught up with them and we got our decoration back,” Reiss said.

Vibank is about 50 kilometres southeast of Regina.