When Alvin Bamburg was walking around Grand Cane, Louisiana, he came upon a holiday wish list that was attached to a balloon. Instead of merely discarding the list, Bamburg decided to save it.

The year before, for Christmas, Leticia Flores-Gonzalez had her kids, Luna and Gianella Gonzalez, attach their wish lists to balloons and then let them go over their house in Liberal, Kansas.

The young ladies held out hope that the balloons would make it to Santa Claus and that he would then deliver their presents. Leticia had no intention of anybody finding the balloon; she believed that it would burst on its own and vanish into a tree somewhere in the neighborhood.

One of the balloons, however, did make it to one person, who was a kind-hearted person with white facial hair and who received one of the balloons.

In the latter part of December, Alvin was out deer hunting in Grand Cane when he came upon one of the balloons caught up in the branches of a nearby tree.

Upon closer examination, he discovered a piece of folded yellow paper that had been sealed with a red star and was attached to the balloon by a thread. When he opened it, he saw a Christmas wish list addressed to Santa Claus and written by a little girl called Luna.

The wish list included of items that a normal child of four years old would desire for the holidays. Candy, a Frozen doll, a Spider-Man ball, a My Little Pony toy, and a dog.

During the Christmas season, Alvin and his wife, Lee Ann Leopard Bamburg, found themselves very busy, however, despite this fact, they did not fail to remember the list.

Alvin shared his discovery with his family and friends on Facebook at the beginning of January in the hope that they might identify its source and because of the large number of individuals who shared the message, Leticia was finally exposed to it.

She explained their state of disbelief by saying, “When we discovered out someone had recovered Luna’s balloon, we were simply stunned.  I just couldn’t believe how kind people were; the love that we felt was overwhelming.”

Leticia was prompted to also distribute Gianella’s list after being encouraged to do so by a number of individuals. Both of Alvin’s daughters started receiving presents when their mother shared the wish list of her other daughter with her extended family, acquaintances, and coworkers, as well as previous classmates.

Midway through the month of April, the Bamburg family finally had the chance to meet Leticia and her twins after months of corresponding with them online.

Even before they actually met, they had exchanged a number of texts, phone calls, and FaceTime messages, and it was obvious that they had something going on between them.

Alvin described their first face-to-face encounter as “exactly like meeting relatives” when they ultimately did so.

The girls received one more gift from Alvin and Lee in the form of a dachshund dog while they were there. The sisters couldn’t contain their happiness and promptly gave their new best buddy the name Max.

On that particular day, the families got together for a lunch, laughed, and connected over the ideals they had in common.

When it was finally time for them to part ways, both sets of parents and children decided that they would get together again soon.

In the meanwhile, Alvin has the sincere wish that people may be motivated by their narrative to look for methods to provide joy to the lives of others.