A Christmas Story

A mystery turns an unassuming couple into Santa Claus

- By Andy Simmons

Jim Glaub and Dylan Parker had just been handed the keys to their new Manhattan apartment on 22nd Street when the outgoing tenant said something curious: "Just so you know, there's this thing where letters addressed to Santa come to the apartment." The previous tenants received the mail too. It had been coming for years and no one knows why. "But it's not that big a deal." Glaub and Parker settled in to their new home, and for the first two years only a few letters trickled in from kids or parents asking "Santa" for gifts they could not otherwise afford: Toys, coats, a doll. Then in the months leading to Christmas 2010, they were deluged. Every day, they'd open their mailbox to find it brimming over with letters to Santa. They responded to as many as they could, writing notes, even buying gifts. But they could do only so much.

Glaub, of course, is not Santa. He runs a Broadway marketing company. But one night, when he and Parker threw a 1960s-themed Christmas party, a solution appeared.