I was shoveling the drive way... well, actually, I was carrying the pile of snow our neighbors lined up between our two driveways across to our pile, when I noticed.

The lights on top of our newly decorated little Nanking cherry weren't on.

Which is odd, because these are the light strings that stay lit when a bulb burns out.

So I checked it out. The second half of the top string was all unlit.

And the cord broken where the lights went out.

Odd. Didn't think we'd had any wind at all, much less enough to snap a wire across a couple branches.

Nope. Wire not broken.

Wire cut.

A neat little snip through it, right next to a bulb where you can't just splice it back together. A two-sided cut, like you would get with, well, wire cutters.

We been vandalized. In just over 24 hours of operation for these decorations.

Well, craaap.

And I unwittingly have been stomping all over the perpetrator's tracks in the snow.

I should call the police to report it. Not that this is a crime that they can solve, but if we're not the only victims, they should probably know.

And if we are the only ones, well, then, I want to know.

But it is a gorgeous winter evening. Over twenty degrees, no wind, low clouds aglow from the street lights. Police station is only three and a half blocks away.

I walk.

Pass the couple from the Snowbirds' house, finishing loading their truck for an obviously long holiday trip.

You going East, or West? I ask.

"West", she answers.

Good. If you need to go east, well, you can't get there from here. Not today, anyway. Nor, probably tomorrow either. And the blizzard, which is only 50 miles away, is moving out pretty slow.

Get to the town offices.

No cop car.

Which means, no cop. So I enjoy walking the three and a half blocks in the pretty evening back home. And call the Sheriff's Office. Telling the dispatcher twice, there's no hurry, no urgency.

But if he wants to stop by, that'd be nice.

Ten minutes later, there's a cop at our door. Same one who blamed me for the snow a couple days ago.

Show him the cut wire. He instantly thinks bored kids.

How many kids wander around with wire cutters in their pocket? 'Course, a leatherman tool would do the same...

Me, I'm suspecting our new neighbors, the ones whose dog swiped and demolished four skulls, three of which were perfect elk skulls, from our back yard this summer. My words about their wandering dog were, well, terse.

Cop says we're the first report of Christmas vandalism.

Oddly, that makes me feel worse, not better.

He would like to make a report, just to document the problem.

Ooookay.

He can't find any incident report forms in the car.

I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing.

We got so little use for such reports in our town that you don't carry them in your car?

Or we got so much crime you can't keep the car stocked with the necessary paperwork?

So, I jot the info he needs on a plain piece of paper. And we stand there in the street on this beautiful winter evening talking about the new truck. And its lousy tires. And our curious neighbor who listens to her police scanner all the time and was watching him pull up to our house.

No, not the new neighbors. The old ones, As in, she grew up in our house. And has managed to move all the way across two driveways in her entire lifetime.

And then he leaves to find the right incident report form.

And I go back to moving snow.

On a gorgeous winter evening.