Tonganoxie ? Since moving into their rural Leavenworth County house last summer shortly after their wedding day, Jeremy and Amanda Smith never bothered to lock their doors.

Until Tuesday night.

That day, while the Smiths were at work, someone walked into their modular home west of Tonganoxie and took nearly all of the wrapped packages they had under their Christmas tree.

“We learned a lesson,” Amanda Smith said. “It doesn’t matter how far out from town you live, you got to lock up.”

The thefts were discovered when Amanda Smith returned home from her job as a checker at the Lawrence Dillons store at 1740 Mass. At first she thought her husband had moved the presents, but she called him to check.

“I hadn’t touched them,” Jeremy Smith remembered telling his wife. She then called the sheriff’s office and an officer came to take a report.

“I wasn’t scared,” Amanda Smith said. “I felt violated, knowing someone was here and I didn’t know who or whether they were still watching.”

Now the Smiths have two locks on each of their doors.

“I spent that night running around figuring out how to lock doors that didn’t have locks,” Jeremy Smith said.

Now the Smiths are going to try to replace some of the 30 missing gifts, worth a total of about $300. They do not have renter’s insurance.

The presents included blankets Amanda had made, and items such as fishing lures, video games and trinket jewelry for nephews, nieces and a godchild. Other gifts were for Amanda’s parents and Jeremy’s mother.

Someone entered the unlocked home of Amanda Smith, left, and Jeremy Smith and stole most of their Christmas gifts. The couple displayed the few gifts left behind in their rural Tonganoxie home Wednesday.

“We’ll get a little of it again, but it won’t be that much,” Amanda said. “As far as all the little kids, it will be hard to replace all of what we got them. Starting all over again is tough. I know they’ll understand. It’s not that we forgot them.”

Although they declined to say what the gifts were, the Smiths also lost the presents they were going to give each other.

The thief or thieves didn’t get everything, though. For whatever reason, a few were left behind, still under the tree. There also were other things in the house that most burglars would have taken, such as a television and other electronics.

“I think something must have spooked them for them not to take all of the presents,” Amanda said.

Later that night however, the Smiths discovered two frozen pizzas missing from their refrigerator.

“This is what makes it comical and why I can laugh it off — because they stole our pizzas,” Amanda said.