Thousands of Christmas ornaments stolen from Aptos store

A major theft at a home decor store in Aptos has many people thinking about the Grinch who stole Christmas.

Sometime between Saturday night and Tuesday afternoon, someone broke into a cargo container outside a store called Outside-In. The person — or persons — stole approximately 2,300 Christmas ornaments, valued at about $37,000.

The decorations were being stored until the store’s owners were ready to display them inside the shop.

John Hammond and his wife Jerri have owned the store off Soquel Drive for nearly 19 years. The Hammonds say they’ve always felt safe in this community, until now.

“It was very disheartening that somebody would steal Christmas, of all the things to do,” said John Hammond.

To get to the items, the unknown suspects would have had to break through three locks on the storage container.

“We feel somebody had been watching us,” Hammond said. “They drilled through three locks of the container, so obviously they had a sense of what we had in there.”

Still, the Hammonds say this won’t crush their holiday spirit and new decorations are arriving every day.