JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Now that many families and their kids are enjoying their new gifts, someone else may be eyeing they're presents too.
This time of year thieves are on the prowl and families need to know what they can do to protect themselves from would be crooks.
There have been a number of burglaries before the holiday, and they don't stop after.
Whether they're still wrapped and underneath the Christmas tree, unwrapped and inside a home or outisde on the streets headed towards the trash can.
Theives know families have gotten gifts this holiday season, and they want them.
This time of year most of us know the same thing a crook does, tis the season of gifts.
Except thieves, like the ones that recently burglarized a Murray Hill home, take what isn't given to them.
Bill Howey's daughter's home was burglarized, and he said, "To go into a defenseless house and steal baby toys, you have no soul."
Howey's daughters home was burglarized just before Christmas. No one was home, but all theeir gifts were stolen.
We checked police reports at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and found at least three other families in the city had something similar happen, right around the same time.
Channel 4 crime analyst Ken Jefferson said people need to be aware.
"Your home could easily become a target when you are away because they know what's inside," Jefferson said.
He said for families to keep their curtains drawn and their doors locked.
Families also need to be aware of unusual activity in their neighborhood.
Now that those gifts are unwrapped, Jefferson said, people shouldn't advertise what they got to thieves by leaving those boxes on the roadside.
"What you want to do is try to break them down. Flip them inside out so people riding by wont see the big screen tv box, the Xbox box or any other expensive items you may have purchased during the Christmas season," Jefferson said.
Follow all of these precautions and hopefully Scrooge won't steal what Santa's brought.
"It takes the wind out of your sails. It's a punch in the gut, that's what it is," Howey said.
Crime experts say there is one wasy way to make sure you're not making it easy for theives to know what you've got.
Instead of folding boxes inside out or breaking them down and keeping them in a home until the trash arrives, take them to the trash. Go ahead and stick them in a dumpster and be rid of the problem without having the mess on your curb.