A Scarborough family’s Christmas decorations were destroyed by masked vandals with hammers
What did Frosty ever do to them?
Not everyone loves the holidays as much as, say, people who go to kitschy Christmas pop-up bars covered in candy canes and tinsel—but a roving band of Scrooges in Scarborough has taken their spirit deficit to an abysmal low.
According to a CBC report, Guildwood resident Scot Patriquin had recently assembled his yearly display of festive lawn decorations when, late at night, masked men with weapons destroyed them.
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At first, the father of three assumed the vandals had come to look at the decorations and maybe take some photos, which he’s used to. Then his son yelled out that they were ruining the inflatable characters, which included Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus and a nativity scene. The masked strangers even approached his front door.
“The person on the side of the door has a hammer, and he’s literally swinging violently to make sure that he tears [an] inflatable off the roof and catastrophically destroyed every single one of the inflatables,” Patriquin told the CBC, calling the group “tough guys killing Frosty.”
After a local retailer offered to replace the damaged decorations, Patriquin decided to put the display up again. “We’re not going to let the criminals win,” he said.
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
