Merchant Saves Christmas

This time, it wasn’t the Grinch who stole Christmas, but some burglars who tried to.

Thieves broke in and stole the presents of a Ventura family on Christmas Eve, but an Ojai store owner saved the holiday when he and his wife agreed to reopen their toy shop about midnight so the family could replace their gifts at the last minute.

“We’d gone out to my parents’ friends’ house for dinner,” said Ronald Haire, who lives in the 6000 block of Fairpoint Avenue. “We had all the Christmas presents under the tree. When we got back about 8:30, someone had broken in and taken all the presents, the VCR, jewelry and whatever else they could find. We had seven children at our house for the holidays, and three of them are Christmas age.”

A police dispatcher called around the county, trying to find stores that were open late, and she reached the owners of Serendipity Toys in Ojai, said Graham Jeffrey, Ventura police desk officer.

The dispatcher reached Joe and Lilly Barthelemy at home after 11 p.m., and they agreed to meet Haire at the shop, Joe Barthelemy said.

“We opened up the store after midnight, and they shopped for about an hour,” Barthelemy said. “Then my wife wrapped up all their presents and I guess they had Christmas after all.”

Haire added: “The kids got up at 6:30 and they saw the presents, and they said, ‘They caught the robbers’ and we said, ‘No, Santa Claus came.’ ”