Santa Comes to Kmart
It isn't Christmas -- whoops, sorry, I mean The Holiday Season -- without a story like this. From Yahoo! News:
The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.
He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.
"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."
Okay, so maybe it's a advertising gimmick? Or am I being cynical? There are two ways to read a story like this: the warm, glowing holiday twinkly way, and the bah! humbug! way.
They don't make it easy to keep up the Scrooge attitude, though:
At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.
Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.
"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband.
Deppe, who said she's worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it.
"It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said.
So you decide. Humbug, or the Spirit of Christmas Living Inside Kmart? And it does seem to be centered within Kmart:
The good Samaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Wal-Mart spokesman said a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen some layaway accounts paid off.
Kmart representatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or spread word of the generosity. But it's happening as the company struggles to compete with chains such as Wal-Mart and Target.
Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four decades. Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold onto their merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks.
The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's assistant manager.
"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't have the money for it," Graff said.
He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."
"You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people," Graff said.
Graff's store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.
"To be honest, in retail, it's easy to get cynical about the holidays, because you're kind of grinding it out when everybody else is having family time," Graff said. "It's really encouraging to see this side of Christmas again."
Personally, I may be visited by three ghosts tonight.
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Comments :
Aug '10
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
So, if someone cannot pay off their layaway bill in full, do they get back the money they've already paid to K-Mart, or does K-Mart pocket partially-paid accounts.
Dec '10
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
Just a service and cancellation fee is withheld.
Jun '10
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
WZZM-TV Channel 13 (Grand Rapids, Michigan): "Copycat Secret Santa"
http://bcove.me/4c75jemn (starts with an advertisement)
Feb '11
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
A version of this story that I saw the other day told of a woman who was so happy because someone paid for the $200 of toys that she had bought for her four year old.
I don't think that her benefactor was doing her any favors. This is not Bob Cratchit territory.
Jul '10
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
Humbug.
Either They're plants to generate buzz about K-Mart
or
The Donors are encouraging these Customers to lay-a-way beyond Their means next time.
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
I just had a summer job at Sears (which is owned by Kmart), and they do do a lot of layaway work. For layaway the customer puts down an initial $5 fee, along with however much money they need to put down depending on the cost of the item. In the case of a cancellation (of which, sadly, there were many), the $5 is non-refundable, and there's a $5-10 cancellation fee. The rest of the money the customer puts towards the item is given back to the customer in the form of a check.
Dec '10
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
I had the same thought as Rob when I read the story, but then I said, "ah, it's still a nice idea and so why not?" Later in the day I needed to run down to K-Mart to try to find some shoes for a gift, and I saw a gigantic "LAYAWAY" banner stretched across the roof of the building, over the doors. I've never seen that banner in 13 years of living here. So now I'm a cynic like Rob again.
Jun '10
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
When I worked at K-Mart in the 1970s (stockboy, first job) they had layaway then. The TV ads are new, but the process (at K-Mart) is 35-plus years old. They were probably just trying to remind people this year with the ads.
Nov '11
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
These stories touch my soft spot.
Although I didn't know it then, for about the first decade of my life we were poor. Layaway was poor folks credit, so my mom often put things on layaway, typically an "expensive" toy or article of clothing for a special occasion for one of us kids.
But if someone had ever tried to pay off mom's lay-a-way, she'd have refused it flat out and might have gotten angry at the would-be-benefactor. Mom was too proud to accept "handouts," probably because when she was growing up, her family survived on handouts, and she knew the shame of it.
Even when they were poor, my parents were generous, especially my mom. She said, "Giving is for the giver." She tried to do it in a way that would not embarrass the recipient. When a neighbor couldn't afford much groceries, mom would "accidently" cook too much and bring them dinner. I once saw her drop a ten dollar bill on the ground near an obviously needy woman, tap her on the shoulder and say, "This just fell out of your purse." Ten dollars was a lot of money.
Edited on Dec 18, 2011 at 6:28pmJun '11
Re: Santa Comes to Kmart
Nice story, though the cynicism above is depressing. Regardless of the merits of layaway, these are free will gifts, not forced handouts.
Edited on Dec 19, 2011 at 3:11pm