Nativity scene in my house!

[Thor]

Coming over to someone else's house and altering what they have on display is illegal but the fact that it's your brother makes things complicated. Have you spoken with him about this? Does he deny he's the one who did it?

I have stood there and watched him take the figures out of the scene (he's my wife's brother, BTW). But his wife is the main perpetrator. She'll immediately walk over and start plucking my baseball figures out of the display. And it especially steams me when she encourages her kids to remove the figures! On several occasions she has stood there with one of her kids and said, "Now what doesn't belong?", and when the kid points out a baseball figure she'll say "That's right. Now take it out." (Great lesson! Teach your kid it's okay to touch other people's stuff!) I'd love to spit out "What the fuck do you think you're doing?", but that wouldn't go over well for family harmony. But seriously, what the hell does she think gives her the right to alter something that's set up in someone else's house? I can only imagine HER reaction if I went to their house and took things out of their nativity display!

A couple of years ago they were taking the figures out of the display and I exclaimed, "What are you doing?". My wife's mother then snapped, "Those things don't belong in there!". I really had to resist the urge to jump down her throat. I didn't think it would be prudent to start a family fight at a holiday gathering. But it rankles the hell out of me that I should have to bite my tongue when THEY'RE the ones behaving like assholes.

---

I would be fucking furious, potentially vengeful, like wanting to rearrange his paintings and photos with depictions of sliding baseball players

Suggestion: Cover the figurines in a bit of adhesive and some habanero pepper juice, make sure they stick around for a while and make sure it's later in the evening - Eventually at least one of them will rub their eyes From this point on just crack a beer open, sit back and enjoy.

Not a bad idea! If I can get ahold of some pepper spray, I could saturate the figures with it. Then when they touched the figures and eventually touch their fingers to their eyes or mouth, they'd get a nice burning sensation! I suppose I could also just cover the figures in some disgusting glop. Either way... it could be fun!