(S)have yourself a merry little Christmas

Baldy. Cue-ball. Chromedome.

As of Tuesday, these are all nicknames that will be applicable to my darling husband, he of the velcro top.

On his recent ACTS Retreat, he met a nice man. Actually, he met a lot of nice men, but this one in particular talked about how he was going to show his inner transformation with an external transformation. Here is Phil's story, in his own words because he writes it far more eloquently than I could:

You may not remember me by name but you may know me as the guy with the longest hair on the retreat. Why and how I came to grow it so long is a long story and not very interesting to anyone but my wife and me. However, the story of when, why and how it will change might be of interest to you and I hope involve at least some of you. On Dec 18 I intend to have my head shaved to benefit St. Baldrick’s Foundation (a volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives). I don’t think St. Baldrick is a real saint and I haven’t spent the time to find out the origin of the name of the charity but I do know that they raise and donate a ton of money to research treatments and cures for children with cancer. They do their annual drive in March each year on St. Patrick’s Day and last year my brother created a site for donations and had his head shaved. I don’t have the patience to wait until next March so I’m doing it this year during Advent the week before Christmas.

 

So why am I doing this in December? At the real estate office where I work we started a new tradition: on your birthday the office gives you $20 to spend doing something outside your comfort range and that you’ve always thought about doing but never had the courage. As you all remember, my birthday was on the Friday of our retreat (thank you all again for making it so special). On the drive home with Ken my decision to shave my head and donate the $20 was reinforced by something he said to me about the appropriateness of making a big outside change to reinforce the inside change that I have experienced. Then it occurred to me that rather than just donate my $20 birthday present, I could multiply the gift by inviting others to share the opportunity. Don’t get nervous, I’m not asking you to shave your heads! I am asking you though to support me by making a donation on my brother’s site. Patrick had set a goal to raise $500 and he didn’t hit it. I would love to be able to help him exceed his goal so I’m not creating my own site, I’m using his.

 

I know it is Christmas and many of you have large families and lots of obligations including planned charitable donations so I won’t ask much. Even a $1 donation would help and I thank you in advance and wish you all a Merry Christmas! 

 

Here is the link to my brother Patrick’s page, please just click on the link to make a donation. http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/543419/2012 if clicking on the link doesn’t work you can copy and paste it in the URL of your browser.

 

To learn more about St. Baldrick’s mission click here. http://www.stbaldricks.org/

 

M has always wanted to shave his head, and now he has a really great reason. While I'm not entirely thrilled about him drastically changing how he looks right before the holidays hit, I can't argue with the fact that this is indeed a truly noble cause. Plus, this experience will give me yet another great M story to share (as if I don't have enough already).

 

We'd love to have your support, too. Please use the link Phil provided above to make a donation to St. Baldrick's Foundation. If anything, raising money will help me feel better while Christmas shopping with some strange bald-headed dude who resembles my husband. 

 

(P.S. If we raise enough money - which amount could be jacked up as soon as I see how ridiculous he looks - I'll post pictures here for everyone to enjoy.)