Gina Priest was out of town last week on business and returned home Sunday to discover her blow-up Santa Claus and reindeer decorations had been pilfered from the front yard.

“I came back that afternoon and I was like ‘where are the decorations?'” Priest said. “At first I thought the kids might have popped them.”

She realized they had been stolen and said it’s “pretty tacky” to take someone’s Christmas decorations, adding that they weren’t expensive but “it’s more the principle and the kids.”

“They were really upset,” she said of her three children — 2-year-old Colton, 8-year-old Ava and 6-year-old Stella . “Every night they like to come out here and turn on the lights and see Santa and the reindeer and they were crying over it.”

All that remained Tuesday was a string of lights slung along the rain gutters and another on a tree, a heart-shaped candy cane and several oversized Christmas lights staked in the front yard which Colton gleefully turned on and off.

Not taking the theft lying down, Gina posted a sign on her front yard politely asking the thieves to bring back Santa and his reindeer.

“To the person that took our Holiday decorations from our yard,” it begins, “Will you please return them? You made our kids very sad!”

Priest hasn’t had time to fill out an online police report, but believes the sign will get the point across just as well. She hopes it will give whoever made off with the decorations a chance to turn it around and make her kids happy.

This isn’t the first time Priest has resorted to sign posting in the face of thievery.

“I actually had my purse stolen in high school,” she said. “I put a sign up and within a week I got my purse back. I’ve had results in the past so I thought I’d give it a shot.”

Priest said she went out and bought some new decorations but they are going in the backyard, a fact she admits kind of takes some of the fun out of it.

Ava has been philosophical about the experience.

“My daughter told me ‘Mom, when bad things happen, you have to realize the good things in life’ which is so true,” she said. “I was like ‘where did you get that?'”

Ava admitted she was sad when she discovered the Christmas decorations were gone because they were brand new, but she took solace in the fact that the thieves left Snoopy behind. Snoopy is now safe inside the house.

“People don’t really think about Snoopy,” she said. “They think about the main parts of Christmas which is pretty much Santa’s reindeer and Santa.”

John Bear: 303-684-5212, bearj@times-call.com or twitter.com/johnbearwithme