An anonymous merrymaker spread some holiday cheer last week by paying $500 toward the layaway accounts of three strangers at a Kmart in Michigan. Since then, copycat Secret Santas have followed suit, giving thousands of dollars for layaways in other stores around the country. 
 
 Last Tuesday, according to WOOD TV in Michigan, a woman in her 30s walked up to the layaway counter at a Kmart and asked if she could pay off someone’s layaway balance. The clerk was confused, but allowed the woman to browse through layaway accounts. The woman ultimately selected three—she was looking, specifically, for ones in which toys had been purchased—and then paid off around $500 total for the three accounts, leaving a balance of just $10 on each. Then she disappeared, leaving just a note on the layaway receipts that read “Happy Holidays from a friend.” 
 
 One beneficiary of the act of anonymous kindness—a mom who’d put $200 worth of toys on layaway for her son David—said that the Secret Santa “restored her faith in people.” 
 
 (PHOTOS: Santa Claus, the Holly, Jolly Stuntman) 
 
 The story doesn’t end there, though. 
 
 The Detroit News reports that the same Kmart has had Secret Santa donations toward layaways of at least $150 every day since the original mysterious stranger arrived. Copycats have also been paying off layaways at other stores in Michigan, and as far away as California. One man anonymously dropped off $2,000 to cover the layaway items of strangers. 
 
 Despite the feel-good tale, layaway remains a less-than-ideal solution for shoppers. One business professor argued it’s better to pay with a credit card and deal with APRs rather than buying goods via layaway. 
 
 But if someone else winds up paying your bill? Then layaway appears like a miraculously good deal. 
 
 Brad Tuttle is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @bradrtuttle. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME. 
 
 LIST: Top 10 Bad Santas ||||| The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children. 
 
 Kevin, center, Jolie, right, and Alex Lewis shop for a family they adopted for Christmas, Thursday Dec 15, 2011 at a Kmart in Omaha, Neb. The Lewises had their layaway paid off at Kmart by an unknown... (Associated Press) 
 
 Kmart store manager Ted Straub talks Thursday Dec 15, 2011 in his Omaha, Neb store. Dozens of Kmart customers across the country have had their layaways paid off by strangers. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver) (Associated Press) 
 
 Dona, Matt, left, and Bryce Bremser, sit for photos at their Omaha, Neb. home Thursday Dec 15, 2011. The Bremsers had their layaway at Kmart paid off by an unknown good Samaritan. (AP Photo/Dave Weaver) (Associated Press) 
 
 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." 
 
 At Kmart stores across the country, Santa is 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. 
 
 Most of the donors have done their giving secretly. 
 
 Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son. 
 
 "I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again." 
 
 Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana. 
 
 The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system. 
 
 The phenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart executives said. 
 
 "It is honestly being driven by people wanting to do a good deed at this time of the year," said Salima Yala, Kmart's division vice president for layaway. 
 
 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." 
 
 Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren. 
 
 Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's layaway. 
 
 In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments. 
 
 Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness. 
 
 "She was yelling at the nurses, `We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said. 
 
 A Kmart in Plainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway. 
 
 Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, Mich., said she cried upon hearing the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job. 
 
 "My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said. 
 
 Angie Torres, a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in the Indianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when she learned the woman next to her was paying off her account. 
 
 "I started to cry. I couldn't believe it," said Torres, who doubted she would have been able to pay off the balance. "I was in disbelief. I hugged her and gave her a kiss." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa; Matt Volz, in Helena, Mont.; and Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report.
– A nice fad this holiday season: Secret Santas are going around to Kmarts and Walmarts and paying off the layaway accounts of random strangers. It's happening all over, including stores in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, South Carolina, and Montana. The AP, NPR and Time round up examples of the anonymous holiday cheer. A typical one: A woman in her 30s went into a Kmart store in Michigan and asked if she could help pay off accounts. She picked three that had toys, shelled out $500, and left only $10 in each account. She also left a note with the receipts, saying "Happy Holidays from a friend."