STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A video provided to the Advance/SILive.com shows an unknown individual walk up to a home in Oakwood and remove a “Keep Christ in Christmas” sign.
A short time late the same sign was found in a nearby storm drain, according to the homeowner’s son.
The owner of the sign is Antoinette Mirando, 69, who lives at the intersection of Peter Avenue and Hylan Boulevard.
Her son, Salvatore, 29, also a resident of Oakwood, shared what he described as a “wild” video, which was recorded around 1 p.m. on Dec. 31.
The footage shows an individual wearing a long green/gray winter coat with gray hair. The person casually walks up to the camera, situated beside the entrance to Antoinette’s residence, turns to the left, and begins doing something off camera by the front door.
The person then walks away with a white “Keep Christ in Christmas” sign with the depiction of the Nativity of Jesus Christ. The individual can then be seen turning away from the door, sign in hand, and walking back toward the street.
The individual crosses toward Hylan Boulevard and then moves out of view behind shrubbery.
Found in sewer, son says
Salvatore was five minutes away from his mom’s house when he got the notification that someone was at her door. When he arrived, he learned that someone took the sign and it was caught on camera.
He went out to see if he could recover either the sign or its metal spike.
“I went to the sewer to go look for the metal and then I looked down in the sewer and the sign and the metal were both in the sewer,” he said.
Salvatore Mirando, a resident of Oakwood, found his family’s “Keep Christ in Christmas” sign in a storm drain at the intersection of Peter Avenue and Hylan Boulevard in Oakwood shortly after it was stolen on Dec. 31, 2025.(Courtesy of Salvatore Mirando)
Although he made an effort to recover the family’s sign from the drain, the son could not retrieve it.
Antoinette lives just around the corner from St. Charles R.C. Church, where she is a parishioner. Her son expressed that he was glad the person simply targeted the family’s sign and not the church’s own nativity display.
“I wish I knew what possessed them to do something like that,” he said.
The theft of the sign came just days after St. Sylvester’s R.C. Church in Concord was defaced with feces in a separate incident on Christmas Day.
Salvatore and Antoinette did not file a police report because they felt it was just a sign that was taken. However, the son did question whether they were targeted because they were Catholic.
The sign is about 10-15 years old and was obtained by Salvatore’s father, who died last year.
To see that sign go from the house to the sewer was “jarring,” said Salvatore, who seeks accountability and wishes this person would apologize. In addition to an apology, he hopes this person undergoes a change of heart.
“What is the problem? How can we help you feel better about yourself that you don’t feel the need to go up to people’s properties and just steal things?” he questioned.