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SantaCon-gratulations are in order!
Two strangers got the biggest gift of all at SantaCon — each other.
Mike Krall and Rosalie Gandarillas met at the famed debauchery and booze-filled Manhattan event in 2021, and now they’re getting married.
The pair, both 26, first laid eyes on each at Beer Authority in Times Square — their last stop on the festive — and often reviled — December bar crawl, where revelers wear Christmas-themed outfits.
Gandarillas, who sported a “hideous one-piece from Target” used Krall’s “jacked Santa Claus” sweater — as her pickup line.
“I said to him, ‘I like your ugly sweater,’” she recalled. “The next thing I know we were talking for a pretty long time.”
The pair quickly realized they had a lot more in common than just their tacky ensembles — and managed to find some wholesome Christmas magic among the unruliness around them.
“He mentioned that he is one of five kids, and I am also . . . And he was like, ‘I’m the second oldest.’ And I was like, ‘Me too!’ And he was like, ‘My birthday’s in August.’ And I was like, ‘Me too,’” Gandarillas said.
“I remember saying to him, ‘Who told you all this stuff about me?’ And he was, ‘No one did. I’m telling you about me!’”
Gandarillas’ sisters — who caught their initial conversation and even their very first kiss on camera — then dragged her away so they could go to Applebee’s — but Krall asked for her number.
After they left, Gandarillas remembered gushing to her siblings, “Oh my God, he’s amazing.”
“And they were like, ‘You’re never gonna see him again.’”
It was a logical expectation given that they lived 120 miles apart, Gandarillas in Farmingville, Long Island and Krall in Manasquan, NJ.
But on the train back home, Gandarillas received a text message from Krall — and from that day forward, “we literally did not go a single day without texting,” she said.
“We knew everything about each other,” Krall added. ‘We just didn’t see each other.”
“It was about a one-and-a-half-hour train from New Jersey to Penn [Station], then another one-and-a-half-hour train from Penn to Ronkonkoma. Plus driving to and from the train station,” Gandarillas explained.
“My mindset was, ‘She’s great, but it’s four hours away,’” Krall said.
They would FaceTime and watch movies together virtually. “We would go, ‘Ok, one, two, three, go,’ and hit the same button,” he said. “And someone would go to get a snack, so we’d pause.”
After 10 months they finally arranged to see each other in person again. They were to meet at Penn and then take the train to a Mets game at Citi Field.
“His train got delayed. I was like, ‘Oh my God, he’s not showing up.’ And when he did, my heart rate was going through the roof. I was so nervous that my Apple Watch was like, ‘Are you working out?’” she remembered.
After they started dating, Gandarillas, who was a medical scribe, and Krall, who was working at a pizzeria, both decided to apply to the NYC Teaching Fellows teacher certification program.
Now, the couple — who live together in Fresh Meadows — are both high school teachers in Queens.
“It’s kind of cringe to say, but we literally changed our lives to be together,” Gandarillas said.
The soon-to-be-bride and groom, who had their engagement party at Beer Authority and are hoping to tie the knot at St. Patrick’s Cathedral next year, were invited to the opening ceremony of this year’s SantaCon on Dec. 13.
“Santa will be giving a special jolly shoutout to honor their SantaCon love story,” its organizer told The Post.
SantaCon attracts a crowd of around 30,000 people dispersed among 25 different bars — so the soon-to-be spouses, who estimate they went to three different bars that day, feel like fate brought them together.
“It’s so crazy because there are so many people to meet and places to go at Santacon,” Gandarillas said. “So us meeting feels meant to be.”
