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Editorial: The season of giving — and taking

’Tis the season to be on the lookout for opportunistic thieves.
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’Tis the season to be on the lookout for opportunistic thieves.

While it’s still a bit early for some, now that Remembrance Day has passed, many Canadians are already chomping at the bit to start celebrating the festive Christmas season.

For the inordinately organized, that might include getting a jump on holiday shopping.

In many cases, this includes making online purchases and enjoying the convenience of home delivery, which, while convenient, comes with some inherent risk.

A Brookswood family discovered that the hard way this past weekend when a parcel was taken off a doorstep in a brazen daylight robbery.

What makes this case somewhat more newsworthy than the average petty theft is the crystal clear surveillance footage of the robbery posted by the family on Facebook, combined with the thief’s casual stroll up and down the driveway — an approach obviously intended to give anyone who happened to be watching the sense he belonged there.

These factors, combined with the timing of crime — six weeks before Christmas — is a good reminder that thieves are going to be hard at work between now and the New Year, helping themselves to whatever they can get their hands on.

In the case of the Brookswood family, it wasn’t an expensive item that was stolen.

But as clothes, electronics and other high-end items begin to arrive through the mail or by courier, there are a few steps consumers can take to help ensure the holiday season is filled with joy rather than regret.

If you can’t be home to receive a parcel, police recommend you have it sent to your place of work or to the courier’s office instead of your home. Or, if you have a trustworthy neighbour who will be home, have it delivered there.

You can take the extra step of ensuring a signature is required upon delivery.

Stuff is just that, stuff.

But when you’ve worked to pay for something that you know will bring a smile to the face of someone you love, it’s worth taking an extra couple of steps to ruin a thief’s Christmas.