A family from Iowa receives a surprise Christmas gift while shopping at Walmart

Dec 27, 2012 09:44 GMT  ·  By

A family from Altoona, Iowa received a surprise Christmas gift while shopping at Walmart this year. A complete stranger walked up to them and offered to pay for their groceries.

According to KCCI Des Moines, mother and grandmother Ruby Modlin picked up $211 (€159) worth of merchandise on Friday, December 21, as she was getting ready for the holidays.

Accompanied by her grandchildren, she went out to buy ingredients to prepare sweets and traditional dishes. A man walked up to her at the cash register, and used his card to pay for her shopping.

“I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘I’m paying for this.’ I said, ‘No, you’re not.’ He said, ‘Yes, I am,’” Modlin remembers.

Asked by reporters whether she had met the good Samaritan previously, she told them she has seen him looking at her family in the store.

“I kept noticing this man, and I'd smile at him,” she adds.

He explained he wanted to perform a gesture of kindness for one family this Christmas, and went to Walmart in search for the perfect recipients. By watching them, him and his own wife and daughter had decided to pick up their check.

“He said, ‘That’s my daughter and wife over there. We just wanted to come out and do something nice for somebody, and we picked you guys,’” Modlin describes.

As he handed her the receipt for the grocery, he wished her a “Merry Christmas!” He never gave her his name, and simply left the store soon after.

For the last 6 months, Modlin has been battling a condition affecting her liver, which requires her to undergo a liver transplant. She was left speechless by the strangers' kindness.

“I was still standing there in shock. We were too busy crying, and the register people were smiling,” she says.