The tradition continues, unfortunately.
This happened to be the first such incident I've seen or heard about this season.
Police arrested five Oregon State students who had cut down a blue spruce that they said they intended to use as a Christmas tree at Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
See:
http://www.ktvl.com/articles/members...re-police.html
The article, dated Nov. 29, 2011, is from the KTVL site, and its headline is “Police: Fraternity members stole Christmas tree.”
A similar article's at
http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/loc...cc4c03286.html
Neither Matthew's Magi nor Luke's shepherds were reported to have stolen stuff, as far as I can remember. Just sayin'.