Theft of Gifts Touches Off an Outpouring of Holiday Spirit : Charity: Individuals and businesses contribute toys, bicycles and a shopping spree to household struck by burglars.

It already had been a tough year for Robert Jackson and Shirley Carreon. Jackson had been in dialysis because of a bad kidney; Carreon’s mother had been laid off. Times were tight, and they were planning a simple Christmas with a few gifts, mostly for the children.

So it just seemed too much to take when thieves broke into their home in an unincorporated area near Torrance on Tuesday and stole just about every gift under the Christmas tree, plus the couple’s color television, VCR, Jackson’s clothes and even the $50 from 5-year-old Andre’s toy bank.

Then Christmas arrived Wednesday, in the form of a cavalcade of gifts from a toy company, a major discount chain, sheriff’s deputies and residents throughout the area who were touched by the family’s plight.

At the Carson sheriff’s station, the family was presented with three bicycles, large trash bags full of toys and a $1,000 shopping spree at Sam’s Club.

“What were tears of anger have turned into tears of happiness,” said Maria Combs, 22, Carreon’s niece. “This is what this season is all about, to make kids happy.” In addition to Andre, 2-year-old Page, Carreon’s daughter from a previous relationship, lives with them. Some of the gifts were also for Jackson’s three children from another relationship, who live with their mother.

On Tuesday, Jackson, 28, had returned to the Raymond Avenue home that he and his girlfriend share with their sons, as well as Maria Combs and her boyfriend Kevin Clark, and found that the place had been ransacked. Someone had broken a side window, entered and temporarily wiped out their Christmas plans.

All but two gifts were taken. But what seemed to bother the family most of all was the theft of the money Andre had been saving for a trip to Disneyland.

“We were teaching Andre how to save his money, every penny, every dime,” Combs said. “We even got the bank in Tijuana because they don’t have the opening at the bottom to take money out. You have to break it to get the money.”

Someone did.

Deputy Nicky Burns of the sheriff’s community relations department said the station’s Christmas needy family program started the process of reversing the household’s fortunes by donating a turkey and a few toys. Things began to roll when individual deputies began bringing toys to the station, and the sheriff’s headquarters bureau in Monterey Park donated the three bicycles.

Arco, which has a plant in Carson, donated the $1,000 shopping spree, and Mattel, located in El Segundo, gave the children a variety of toys.

Jackson seemed somewhat taken aback by all the generosity. But still, it could not erase the experience of being burglarized.

Carreon and Combs were most deeply touched by the simplest of gifts. Barbara Massie, who was watching the morning television news of the story with her children, explained to her sons, Jacob and Brian, about the little boy who had lost his piggy bank money. Jacob, 3, went and emptied his own piggy bank, all $3.80, and told his mother to give it to Andre.