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​It’s Christmas in Six Days and I Just Got Robbed

Try and imagine every single possession you hold dear. Now imagine writing them all down on an insurance claim form. Merry Christmas.

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This post originally appeared on VICE UK

My house just got robbed, six days before Christmas. They smashed the glass door at the back of the house and took all the presents from under the tree. They took other stuff too—laptops, family heirlooms, just generally my favorite and most treasured possessions—but it's the presents from under the tree that really stings. They literally stole Christmas. Like: the exact polar opposite of Santa. Thanks a lot.

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Getting burgled in December is a jarring experience. This is the second time in five years it's happened to me, so I don't know if that makes me an expert in the field, or one of the biggest chumps in the Greater London area. It forces you to confront the idea that although Christmas is meant to be a giving and joyous occasion, there are still some supreme dickheads out there. You can't really sit and watch the Queen's speech when you've got no TV. And it's hard to enjoy your turkey when you know that man is inherently evil.

Walking into my house in the immediate aftermath, it took a while for the reality of the situation to hit. On first look, the living room didn't look too bad—I have a messy housemate, so he could have feasibly just had a mad one and hidden the PS3 as a joke. It was only when I saw the garden instead of the back door that I realized we'd been robbed. And robbed hard too: Someone had taken a huge tool and smashed a hole—at least six feet high and three feet wide—into the room where I drink coffee every morning. As I stared into its gaping maw, my brain went into overdrive trying to list every belonging I felt important and wondering whether or not it was still there.

Try and imagine every single possession you hold in any way dear. Now imagine writing them all down on an insurance claim form. Merry Christmas.

Burglary, on the whole, is an opportunistic crime, and it showed in my thief's handwork. I don't want to go in and tell these burglars how to do their jobs—they had a pretty good go of gutting my home and, in some way, life—but it's clear this wasn't a meticulously planned thing. They only wanted stuff that had immediate value, and had torn the house apart trying find it. The police told me I wasn't allowed to touch anything until forensics arrived, so I just sort of squatted in the hallway, far enough from the wreckage that I wouldn't be tempted to sift through it, trying to get my head around what had just happened.

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Here's the most obvious take away from all this: Getting robbed in December properly messes up your Christmas, and in more than just a "my personal belongings are gone" kind of way. December is a month where people are meant to be out being sociable—$11 mugs of mulled cider! Secret Santa! Ice skating! Shit like that!—and I'm in a headspace where I just do not want to leave what's left of my house to go and be hollowly merry. Nights out enjoying Christmas festivities have been quickly swapped for cleaning sessions, figuring out how to work without a laptop, and reeling out the same "thanks, at least I've got my health" speech to well-wishers on the phone.

Speaking with my neighbors after the incident—I had to go door-to-door to remind them that they should definitely start locking their doors and windows—it became clear lot of burglaries in my area of East London have been fueled by a search for so called " Asian gold." Post-recession, burglars are hitting residential homes in search of quick-to-sell, high profit hereditary jewelry. An increase in gold prices has only compounded the problem—in October last year, almost 25 percent of burglaries in the Havering area saw large quantities of gold jewelry stolen. As I looked at torn up shoeboxes and the gold-colored Casio wristwatch that had been tossed across my room in a huff, I liked to imagine the disappointment my burglars found when going through my crap. Take that, burglars. I'm poor.

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I got a bit obsessed with the Asian Gold theory—and FYI, if the police are monitoring my post-robbery search history, please note I have been doing these searches for purely journalistic reasons, and that I am not casing out my neighbors to try and grab some of sort of semblance of Christmas back—but I kept digging for other motives. Most of my electronics were gone, so maybe my robber was looking for presents.

In the hallway, the police told me that this time of year brings about a flurry in burglaries as people resort to crime to get them through the holiday period. Some want to sell what they steal for a quick buck to cash-in for present binge. Others are looking for the gift their kid so desperately wants, but they just can't afford. Most depressing of all, some people just need a way to heat their homes as the nights get cold. The emergency glazer fixing my window and the forensics assistant remarked that they had bumped into each other on more than one occasion, as homes and schools alike in my local area are getting knocked off for iPads, phones, laptops, and anything else people can download an app to. People are making friends over a shared love of the fact that my neighbors and I keep getting robbed.

The stats will show that burglary rates in London are down to their lowest in 40 years, but while those numbers provide some good radio show fodder for politicians and comfort for someone able to afford to buy a house in the capital, when you're having your third "Fuck, they nicked that too?" moment of the day, it's hard to find solace in a 12 percent decrease in burglaries since last year. Ideally? Ideally we'd be down 100 percent on last year. That, and I would still be able to carry on with the career mode I had going on FIFA.

It could be a lot worse—after all, as I'm more than happy to tell my extended family on the phone, I do still have my health. In a weird way, being stripped of most of my worldly possessions has given me a greater appreciation of the Christmas spirit. The outpouring of sentiment from family members and friends I've haven't talked to in months has helped me rein in (most of) my whiny millennial hyperbole. Christmas is still going to be a sorrel-fueled blur of Danny Dyer–flavored EastEnders and family dysfunction, and that's something no burglar can steal from me. I'm not glad that someone saw fit to steal my belongings, but if I play around with a few pieces in my head, I guess I can believe that they did it from a place of desperation, and that my PlayStation is going to be unwrapped on Christmas Day by a ten-year-old who's a lot worse off than I am. Christmas is for giving I guess. Who knew I could be so generous?

Follow Carl Anka on Twitter.