The card was addressed ‘to the lady who waves and smiles’

A ‘lonely’ grandma with dementia got a heartwarming Christmas surprise when a complete stranger posted a card and present through her door.

A Twitter user named Melly, who lives in Durham, wrote online that her nan spends all of her days alone sitting in a chair by her window.

However, she unwittingly made a friend by waving and smiling to passersby on the street.

A unexpected card that came through her door read: ‘To the lady who waves and smiles, with Christmas wishes.


‘It’s nice to see you smile and wave when I walk past your house.

The post has received more than 8,000 retweets so far (Picture: Twitter)

‘Please accept my small token gift to give you another reason to smile’.



The card, which arrived with a Sainsbury’s gift voucher, was signed off with a kiss by a mystery person named ‘Leigh’.

After posting about the incident on Twitter, Melly received nearly 85,000 likes and more than 8,000 retweets.

She wrote: ‘My Nan is disabled & has dementia.

‘She sits in her chair by the window all day, every day – just looking outside & normally feeling lonely as we all work during the day.

‘When we went to see her today, someone had posted this through the letter box.

‘Merry Christmas, Leigh’.

People on social media loved the kindhearted gesture, with the hunt now on to find Leigh.

A Twitter user called Josh wrote: ‘The internet needs to find Leigh and give that person everything they want this festive season! And happy Christmas nan.’

Alison McGinley added: This is beautiful. Gives me hope that there’s still some decent people in the world.Merry Christmas to your nan from Scotland.’

Rich Jones also commented saying: ‘Oh for a world with more leighs [sic] and waving, smiling nans in it’.

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