Last Christmas, the Sanderford family of Tacoma, Washington got a nasty surprise. Two large boxes of gifts sent from friends and family were delivered to their house while they were away, and had been stolen before they returned home. Though Jen Sanderford contacted the police to file a report about the stolen presents, it didn't seem likely that the couple and their young children would ever see the missing gifts.

But earlier this month, Sue Schriener, who had sent the gifts to the Sanderfords, received an unexpected phone call from a Costco shop in Gig Harbor. It seemed that shortly after Christmas, someone had taken the Costco mattress-topper box that contained the presents to Costco as a return item, in exchange for $177. No one bothered to check what was inside the box, and so it was returned to the store's shelves for resale, where it sat for months.

Just recently, someone attempting to purchase a mattress-topper came home with a boxful of Christmas gifts, and alerted Costco to the error. The store's receiving manager, Dan Lokken, quickly sent his team into a sleuthing mission to discover who the gifts belonged to. "It was kind of interesting," he told the News Tribune. "It took a little legwork."

After Lokken and his workers located Schriener, they got in touch with the Sanderfords, so that they could stop in and pick up their long-lost package. Although the box of Christmas gifts was more than six months late, the family was thrilled to receive the long-lost presents, which included two gingerbread house-making kits, two Thomas the Tank Engine books, and a kids' playhouse, among others.

Christmas in July may be a little unorthodox - but it sounds like the Sanderfords had a very merry holiday, after all.

By Kathryn Hawkins