"Purloined Letters"

[Al Sisti]

Leaderboard at 10:15 EST:

1. Peter Abide (test solving)
2. FrankieHeck
3. oldjudge
4. DJB
5. RPardoe
6. C=64
7. LesY
8. Meg
9. BarbaraK
10. markhr
11. m5rammy

...and a few more that are close. If you think a public nudge would help, let me know; otherwise, feel free to PM me.

[cbarbee002]

Got step 1, working step 2 . . . . think I have it, but awaiting confirmation.

[boharr]

(Yanked) Off the Couch. Answer submitted.

EDIT: Confirmed.

[ReB]

Finally after two wrong rabbit trails corrected with private nudges from Al, I've rolled off the couch.

[Dannyvee]

Off the couch. Good one!

[Cindy]

Solved and submitted.

[whimsy]

After way too many hints, I am off Santa's lap and down the chute!

[Laura M]

I am off the couch, but needed the posted hints to get there! Great puzzle and excellent cluing!

[FKelly]

Submitted an answer. Waiting for confirmation.
Edit: Boy, was that a wrong guess. Resubmitted a more diabolical actor, but one that may be less entertaining.

[Hector]

Used all three nudges, so I'll take the DNF, but interesting idea and well constructed!

[Al Sisti]

Final leaderboard (reveal is coming in a minute):

12. ReB
13. cbarbe002
14. Dannyvee
15. boharr
16. Cindy
17. Wendy Walker
18. whimsey
19. Laura M
20. Beth Tyrpin
21. Hector
22. Schmeel
23. Cindy N
24. FKelly

...not as many solvers as we've been having, but I'm happy with this many for what I felt was a Week 3... maybe I'm getting this rating thing down?

[Al Sisti]

The answer to this meta was “Macy’s.”

Hmmm… no real themers here, so what was the story? Well, 38A and 42A tell us we need to rewrite “LETTERS TO SANTA” in five grid entries. Parsed another way, change a letter in each of five entries to an S, an A, an N, a T and another A. But which entries?

That’s what made this a week three. I didn’t really give any good clues as to what you were looking for, so it was up to observant solvers to notice one, maybe two, entries that became a new word when having a letter swapped with S, A, etc.; the hope being that when you saw that the one or two “foothold” entries you found were synonyms for the word “change,” you could narrow your search down to look for more.

Anyway, those words were:

TWITCH  T swapped with S from Santa = SWITCH
VERY  E swapped with A from Santa = VARY
CHARGE  R swapped with N from Santa = CHANGE
GRADE G swapped with T from Santa = TRADE
ADEPT  E swapped with A from Santa = ADAPT

… and the switched letters spell… TERGE? EGRET? There’s got to be more.

There is… this a Week 3 after all, and (MGWCC) Week 3’s often send us off grid, to the clues. And the clues for these five grid entries (in grid order) were:

4D: Minor spasm (M)
13D: A lot (A)
30A: Credit card transaction (C)
47A: You get this… (Y)
64A: Skilled (S)….

…giving us the culprit – MACY’S -- who figured “if Santa doesn’t bring the kids what they want, they’ll have to come to our store.”

Hope you enjoyed it – from your comments, most did – and I hope you like the idea of us giving you all a special Christmas bonus MMM on Christmas Day from now on. And I mostly hope you’re all having a happy, healthy and safe holiday season, and that we all will have a better 2021.

[dudeski]

Great puzzle Al. Thanks for the nice explanation. Happy New Years.

[Al Sisti]

Great puzzle Al. Thanks for the nice explanation. Happy New Years.

...and to you and yours!

[KayW]

Doh! KAS 4 for me. I got as far as TERGE but didn’t look down to the clues. And prior to the nudges, I was trying to make letter changes that would work both across and down (among other irrelevant rabbit holes).

Nice puzzle and mechanism; my brain just not clicking on this one. Happy holidays, all!

[FrankH]

Since I don't subscribe to MGWCC, I learned something new.

My rabbit hole was substituting a letter to form the word SANTA. Change the L in 15A to N and it spells SANTA backwards. Change the E in 16A to A and together with the last letter in 15A, I can also spell SANTA. But that is as far as this rabbit hole goes.

[m5rammy]

I did solve it, but I thought the "reveal" would "it was all a misunderstanding"
ie, not: has Taken (stolen) all the "letters to Santa",
but rather: has taken (brought) all the letters (to the North pole, and delivered them) to Santa
After all, Macy's and Santa do have a history.

[Al Sisti]

I did solve it, but I thought the "reveal" would "it was all a misunderstanding"
ie, not: has Taken (stolen) all the "letters to Santa",
but rather: has taken (brought) all the letters (to the North pole, and delivered them) to Santa
After all, Macy's and Santa do have a history.

Shoot. I like your ending much better!

[Dplass]

The answer to this meta was “Macy’s.”

Hmmm… no real themers here, so what was the story? Well, 38A and 42A tell us we need to rewrite “LETTERS TO SANTA” in five grid entries. Parsed another way, change a letter in each of five entries to an S, an A, an N, a T and another A. But which entries?

That’s what made this a week three. I didn’t really give any good clues as to what you were looking for, so it was up to observant solvers to notice one, maybe two, entries that became a new word when having a letter swapped with S, A, etc.; the hope being that when you saw that the one or two “foothold” entries you found were synonyms for the word “change,” you could narrow your search down to look for more.

Anyway, those words were:

TWITCH  T swapped with S from Santa = SWITCH
VERY  E swapped with A from Santa = VARY
CHARGE  R swapped with N from Santa = CHANGE
GRADE G swapped with T from Santa = TRADE
ADEPT  E swapped with A from Santa = ADAPT

… and the switched letters spell… TERGE? EGRET? There’s got to be more.

There is… this a Week 3 after all, and (MGWCC) Week 3’s often send us off grid, to the clues. And the clues for these five grid entries (in grid order) were:

4D: Minor spasm (M)
13D: A lot (A)
30A: Credit card transaction (C)
47A: You get this… (Y)
64A: Skilled (S)….

…giving us the culprit – MACY’S -- who figured “if Santa doesn’t bring the kids what they want, they’ll have to come to our store.”

Hope you enjoyed it – from your comments, most did – and I hope you like the idea of us giving you all a special Christmas bonus MMM on Christmas Day from now on. And I mostly hope you’re all having a happy, healthy and safe holiday season, and that we all will have a better 2021.

Reveal.png

Wow... This was a "never gonna happen" for me. I was looking for words meaning "steal", of which there are none..., not "change", of which lol there are 5.

Ah well, thanks for the free puzzle.

[Joe Ross]

KAS4, post nudges. DOH!

Never was going to find that first step on my own, which is a reflection on me, not the creator.