Secret Santa delights Canadians with lavish gifts

A mystery anonymous Santa Claus sent gift cards worth Can$250 with poems to several hundred residents of a neighborhood in western Canada, reports said Saturday. 

"Woke up to find this on my step with a very large gift card. It appears my whole neighborhood got one," Edmonton resident Leigh-Ann MacNaughton said on Facebook alongside a picture of a three-verse composition about hope and solidarity.

"I have been crying all morning."

Around 400 similar envelopes were dropped on December 24, and each contained a Can$250 Walmart voucher, residents told local media.

Elisha Tennant, who lost her job during the pandemic, also welled up when she opened one of the mystery packages.

"It was just very heartwarming and touching that someone would do that," she said Friday, according to CBC. 

"To have something like this, I mean, that's a month of groceries for us." 

The poem offered soothing words about the possibility of a better year after months of hardship caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a mounting worldwide death toll.

CBC reached out to an email listed at the bottom of the note, which was signed "Secret Santa." 

"I decided to do it because I know that lots of people have had a really tough year and I had the means to help out," the apparent benefactor replied. 

"I hope the gifts gave people a sense that the world is good and there is a brighter future not far ahead."