Last year my dearest, darlingest friend Rebecca and I organized a wild project called The Mrs. Claus Affair. We realized there were a number of amazing wives and mothers who are left behind at overseas assignments here in Germany while their spouses are stuck in a far away deployment. They are so good about care packages for others, but come Christmas morning these amazing women routinely find themselves empty-handed next to the Christmas tree. Many of our soldiers and service members simply don't have easy access to shopping and shipping. They work long, grueling hours. We realized there was a great little opportunity here to help everyone out.
Enter Mrs. Claus.
We did a fabulous fundraiser, thanks to some awesome photographers--Geneva Chugg who just finished my family photos, and Sharma Shumate who is such a talented girl in every single aspect of her life--and had local people from our Ramstein area submit names of women who would be husbandless on Christmas morning.
Our goals were simple:
1. Provide something personal to place under their tree--not a gift card or cash--to be opened on Christmas morning. Something nice.
2. Keep the donations and participants anonymous.
3. Make Christmas a little better and brighter for someone who is far from home and far from family.
We had a number of deployed men submit their wives' names, including a detailed description of their likes and dislikes. Then we took our fundraiser money and spent about $75 on each one of our 20 or so women. We kind of rocked the gift packages.
It was amazing. We delivered their gifts the week before Christmas and I kid you not, it was incredible. We hugged and cried and celebrated on doorsteps with women who were literally speechless that someone had remembered them, had remembered their sacrifice, had recognized just how hard it is to be on this side of the coin. These ladies are special. They must be remembered. They must!
My friend has moved and I'm not going to be able to do the fundraiser this year. However, after talking to my girlfriend Hollee I realized that The Mrs. Claus Affair can still reach out to others, we're just going to modify our packaging.
If you know anyone--anywhere in the world--who is supporting a deployed military spouse this Christmas, nominate them! Send an email to themrsclausaffair@gmail.com
If you know anyone--anywhere in the world--who is supporting a deployed military spouse this Christmas, nominate them! Send an email to themrsclausaffair@gmail.com
Or, if you would like to be part of The Mrs. Claus Affair this year, please email themrsclausaffair@gmail.com and I will hook you up to adopt someone from the Military Community who will be alone for Christmas and YOU can be part of this magical Christmas event. This year it will be a little different, so here are the instructions.
1. Send me your contact information
2. I will assign you the name of a wife (or husband) that is going solo this Christmas, including a mailing address plus a little something about her.
3. Prepare a personal Christmas gift to send her, wrapped and ready to go under the tree. We will have a letter for you to include in your package explaining a little about The Mrs. Claus Affair. Packages will ship directly from you to your assigned military support family member.
4. MAIL PACKAGES BY THANKSGIVING, or December 7th if you're going stateside to stateside. You must send it Priority or it very likely won't make it by Christmas, no matter what the post office tells you.
So let's make this year's Christmas season something special. Adopt one of Mrs. Claus' girlfriends today!
Send emails to: themrsclausaffair@gmail.com and I will personally hook you up with someone who could use the love and support your family has to offer.
Friends! Please post this to facebook and anywhere else you can think of, let's see how many families we can help this year. There's a FB button right under this post. Go on, do it!
Much love from Me and Mrs. Claus!
