Tina Schwellensattl of Belleville has a Christmas miracle and her bundle of cash back to boot.

It occurred Tuesday night when Schwellensattl took the money she had saved over the year and went Christmas shopping.

"I don't have a lot of money but I scrimped and saved to come up with $500 to spend for Christmas," she said. "I went to the bank and got it all in cash and put it in my old beat-up wallet."

Schwellensattl said she also had some gift cards in the wallet along with all her information.

She started off at Kmart on the west end of Belleville.

"We shopped all the sales and then went to Shop 'n Save," she said. "Then we were going out to eat. I looked in my purse and my wallet was gone."

Immediately they pulled over to the side of the highway and began checking in all the shopping bags. The anxiety began to mount. She checked in the trunk. Nothing.

"I was distraught," she said.

They began backtracking to places they had been.

"I was frantic," Schwellensattl said. "People were upset for me. I was like a maniac."

Until she went back to the Shop 'n Save on North Belt West. The wallet was there along with everything that had been in it.

"It had been turned in by a lady who didn't give her name," Schwellensattl said. "They thought she was a regular shopper."

The finder hadn't even opened it, just turned it in, the store employees said.

Schwellensattl said she has two grown children who told her they would have understood if she couldn't buy them presents. But she also buys for the kids she takes care of at her daycare business.

She is so grateful to her unknown angel.

"I'm going to put up a note in the store," Schwellensattl said. "If she wants to call me. I would love to talk to her."

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