Roadside secret Santa at it again along NJ highway

[December 01, 2010]  LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) -- An annual Christmas mystery is playing itself out again along a busy New Jersey highway.

A secret Santa is once again surreptitiously hanging ornaments from a large pine tree by the side of the Garden State Parkway in the dead of night.

A gold star was hanging from the boughs of the tree Tuesday morning.

It's the fourth year in a row that the ornaments have shown up on the same tree in the southbound lanes in a sparsely populated area of Little Egg Harbor Township.

No one has come forward and acknowledged decorating the tree. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which maintains the road, has said it isn't responsible.

The ornaments appear gradually, starting with one or two, and eventually growing to about a dozen by Christmas.

[Associated Press; By WAYNE PARRY]

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