Do you wish to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry! Clothe the naked! Welcome the unwanted! Care for the ill! And do unto others ! As you would have done unto you! Oh, Yeah! This couple managed to keep Christ in Christmas! Would you like to know how?
In 2010, Jim Glaub, 40 & Dylan Parker, 39, were surprised, when they started receiving letters addressed to Santa Claus! Letters started dropping in lots into their apartment on West 22nd street in Manhattan.
To try to figure out where the mystery letters were coming from, the couple opened a few. The letters contained heart breaking requests from needy children mostly from New York.
They were asking for a very basic need like a turkey on Christmas day, food to put out their pangs of hunger, blankets to protect them from biting winter, shoes to protect their tender feet from severe cold…….all needy children with a hope to get something as a gift from Santa Claus!
Needy children who wanted to relish a turkey on Christmas day since they were reluctant to go to the soup kitchen on this very special day!
“Santa, I would be extremely grateful if you could send my brother something. He’s 15.”
“Santa, Please don’t worry about me this year! I just want my brother to have a good Christmas this year! Our mom is not in our life. Our grandfather is raising us as best as he can!”
“My brother is taking things the hardest. Last year we ate at a soup kitchen. Please Santa! Not this year too!” one wrote.
Oh! They were tear-jerking tales.
Totally stupefied they wondered why the children had chosen them – Jim & Dylan, to send their requests to. Eventually the couple felt it is their moral duty to answer the letters. They widened the project and started requesting their family, friends and social media strangers to help them.
The couple has replied to over 2,000 letters addressed to Santa Claus by needy children every year to the letters that are delivered to their New York apartment. Well! No doubt the couple was cautioned about the letters when they had just moved into this apartment.
Jim said, “The gentlemen who’d lived there a few years (before us) said, “These letters to Santa are going to come – only a couple – but just so you know, it happens”.
But it was not just one or two! They came in hundreds! So much so you will be surprised! They even fell out with their local postman. The letters that they received did not fit in their mailbox. They were falling out. The mailbox couldn’t even be closed.
Jim elaborated, “We threw a 1960s vintage holiday party and when it ended up, what people saw was a big stack of letters in the front of the room.
‘I told them the story and people competed & called out, “I’ll take a letter! I’ll take a letter!” ‘It just sort of snapped, and I thought, “Oh we’re going to get people to fulfil these. People wanted to help”.’
The couple was thrilled by the response. So what next they thought ? Only marching ahead of course!
The couple decided to set up a not-for-profit organisation, just to help people fulfil Christmas wishes, called Miracle on 22nd Street, Manhattan. Their friends and family members swung into action. They helped the couple to pen responses to the children.
This active group now estimates that they have responded to 2,000 letters over the last 10 years. The apartment’s new tenant is also in it. He has been carrying on the tradition and is helping the couple organise the letters every year. However it’s really strange that they are still clueless as to why their apartment receives all the letters.
Dylan had earlier expressed, “We’ve considered there’s an organisation with a similar dress or maybe it’s a scam. ‘As it’s progressed I’ve cared about that less and less and been more like, is there an expectation here? What do we need to do?’
Do you know the wonder of wonders? It’s the Christmas tradition. Just five blocks away from the 22nd street’s apartment is the townhouse where Clement Clarke Moore wrote “The Night Before Christmas.”
