2007
I’ve put it off for a while, hoping for some sort of settlement in the writer’s strike. But much like the late-night talk show hosts, I feel that it is not fair to deny the public the benefit of my talent any longer. Sorry Lauren, call me Uncle Scab if you must, but I have to write this Christmas letter!
January
Nothing really big to report here, except Emily turned 19 this month. The only thing different is that this year she had her birthday a state away. But 19 is a special age and I thought it was time for that special gift. But after reading the fine print on the Wittenberg University housing contract, I had to cancel the pony I ordered for her birthday. Maybe next year.
February
Finally, something exciting happened in February. The Indianapolis Colts were playing in the Super Bowl, and I was going to be there. A couple of months before I had been talking football with Cousin Bruce. He mentioned that he had tickets to the game and said he would take care of me if my boys made it that far. Of course, the Colts had just lost to the lowly Texans, so I don’t think he was too worried about it. Anyway, about 2 minutes after we beat the evil Patriots, I was on the phone hoping he remembered that conversation. He did and I was soon on my way to Miami. You all remember our friends Marty and Kathy from Miami? Of course you do. Anyway, Kathy set me up with a place to stay and a fantastic Cuban dinner Friday night. And Marty spent Saturday morning giving me a tour of the city. Saturday evening was party time on South Beach. Bruce got me into the big event that his agency hosted. This was one of those big time deals that you see clips of on Entertainment Tonight. Velvet ropes and paparazzi and me. And Cruises and Hiltons and Johanssons and Fergies and me. All sorts of movie, TV, music and sports stars. I spent the evening rubbing elbows and other body parts with all sorts of famous people. It was really crowded. It’s really odd to say, “That guy looks like Andy Roddick” and then realize there is a good reason he looks like that. And people looked at me and said, “Hey that guy looks like…well, nobody”. It was a great evening that ended about 4 a.m. I hadn’t been up that late since Emily was born. Bruce and company didn’t make it to Miami until a couple of hours before game time. He had to work the day before. (I never work Saturdays anymore.) Anyway, we met at the stadium. Our group included Demi, Ashton, and 2 of Bruce’s daughters, Rumer and Tallulah. We watched the first half from the stands. During the second half Bruce and I watched from a suite while Demi and Ashton watched from the stands. That worked out best since Ashton is as big of a Bears fan as I am a Colts fan. It was a great game and tons of fun. The Colts victory was just icing on the cake. We stayed dry the entire game and then proceeded to get soaked wandering around the parking lot trying to find our limo. The whole weekend was Christmas letter material. If I write about all the fun things, it would fill the entire thing. Ask me about it over a beer sometime. Thanks Bruce.
March, April and May
Sarabeth has her 14th birthday. But other than that, not much happening here. So, this would be a good time to tell you about something that was going on the entire first half of the year. My brother and sisters and I had a project. We had to clear out, clean up and sell the house we grew up in. Along the way we had to make all of those tricky decisions about who wants what and who should get this and that. So through the magic of email, we all arranged our schedules to meet for a series of three-day weekends to complete the project. The first weekend consisted of filling a very large dumpster. The highlight was Bob and I cutting in half the old pool table downstairs. It was the only way to get it out of there. We went at it with a Sawzall, all the time hearing Dad’s voice in our head saying, “Be careful, don’t tear the felt!” A few weeks later we were back again. This time we were dividing all of the Willis treasures. You know, the art, the fine china, and of course the extensive jewelry collection. Actually, most of you have toured the estate in Valley Station so you know that that didn’t take very long. It was amazing the items that everyone was passionate about. It was the silly things. Things that sparked memories. For me it was the Coca-Cola thermometer from the breezeway. The cover from my brother’s copy of Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream” album. Although I didn’t take it because I really didn’t know where I would put it, my favorite item was the closet door that had 50 years of kids and grandkids heights and dates marked on the edge. I was really proud of my siblings. After all that dividing, we still like each other. We spent another couple of weekends painting and fixing and cleaning and then had the big sale.
At one of our earlier work weekends we were visited by a retired man and his wife. It seems someone down the street was having a yard sale and put a sign up on the corner. They wandered into our house ready to buy. We pointed out that we weren’t having a sale that weekend but would have one in a few weeks, though they were welcome to look around. They left a few hours later but promised to return and help with the sale next month. And return they did! They showed up the day before and took over. That lady told us how to price stuff, how to set up the tables and everything else we needed telling about. They were there at least 14 hours Friday and were back Saturday for about the same amount of time. They even stopped by Sunday to help clean up. These were total strangers that joined the family for a weekend. We thought about hunting up their address and dropping off some sort of thank you gift. But my sister Teresa suggested that once we got there and knocked on the door a young girl would answer. We would explain who we were and she would, with a tear in her eye, ask what kind of cruel hoax this was, since her parents died at a yard sale ten years ago to the day. Teresa thinks about stuff like that. She lives in California. We never sent them a gift and I don’t know that anyone has heard from them since.
June
Fun month. The ladies took me out to dinner for Father’s Day. We had fun but I mention it because I get a chance to show off a nice photo of my girls. This was also the month that we brought the entire Willis family together for “Willis on the Water”. See, I told you we still liked each other. We met at a cabin in southern Indiana near Cincinnati and spent a few days playing golf, drinking, boating and drinking, and eating and then some serious ballroom dancing, which can be explained by all the drinking. We had just about everyone there which is pretty cool since we are spread out from one coast to another. We spent most of Saturday on a couple of pontoon boats tied together on Brookville Reservoir. We would just lie around the boat for a while telling all sorts of stories and solving the world’s problems and then jump in the water. We would lay around in the water for a bit, splash each other like little kids and then crawl back on board for food and drink. When we finally made it back to the cabin we would start over. Sit on the deck listening to music while dinner was sitting on the grill. Eat and then continue on with the important stuff we had been doing earlier. A Scrabble game inside and a Cornhole game outside on the deck. For those of you not from around here let me assure you that Cornhole is an activity that is legal in all 50 states. The evening ended with my brother Bob and me singing a duet of the Turtle’s “Happy Together” around the campfire. I guess I need to end this story with that image bouncing around your head. For those of you that know my brother, it will bounce around for quite awhile.
July
A bunch of things happened this month. The most lasting was the fact that my partners and I signed the papers for the sale of Excel Graphics. It was strange. I have been there for 25 years. We grew it from a small local shop to a nationally recognized company. But the time was right, and the right offer appeared. It’s now been a few months, and I have a strong feeling that this one action will be prominent in next year’s letter. Probably the neatest thing was that for a few minutes, I felt rich. Money was wired to my account and just like that, I was wealthy. And then I realized that that money had to last until about one minute before the last of Jane or I bit the dust. And since we plan on that being quite a ways down the road, the thrill kind of frizzled. But it sure was fun for a few minutes there.
Emily worked all summer as a lifeguard at Eagle Creek Park. The swimming area there is a beach at the reservoir. A little different from the typical pool where snakes and other assorted wild creatures aren’t so prevalent. I was really proud of her. She worked hard all summer, with about 1 day off every 2 weeks. But she got a week off for our family vacation. And Sarabeth was finally out of school. The end of the year-round school schedule. She would be starting high school in August, so we had to do all of our vacation stuff in the next few weeks.
About a week before our scheduled time off we still had no idea where we were going. We do this every year. I guess we spend so much time planning the rest of our life, that vacation seems more fun if we just kind of wing it. So this year we each put a couple of locations on a slip of paper and pulled our vacation out of a hat. We were going to San Francisco! Our first impression of the city was formed during the ride from the airport to our hotel downtown. What a dumb place to build a city. Look at that picture. That’s a real street, not an amusement park ride! The whole place is like that. Can you imagine trying to learn to ride a bike there? At the bottom of all these hills, near the water’s edge, are thousands of bicycles that never made it home. We unpacked and quickly became tourists. Since we really hadn’t planned this trip, we just got up in the morning and decided where in the city we could do the most damage, jumped on a cable car and went. We visited most of the places you are supposed to visit. Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, Chinatown, Lomdard Street, Muir Woods. And we have the photos to prove it. Between the four of us we brought back about 700 digital pics. We mostly remember a lot of the silly stuff that went on as we waited for cable cars, sat around in restaurants or strolled through some of the shops. We really have developed a knack for keeping ourselves entertained. Taking silly pictures with objects of art. Having serious conversations with stuffed animals. We also remember all of the great food. We went armed with a list of great places to eat and ended up at most of them. It is a very international city. If you go to a French restaurant the people that run it are from France. We ate at a dozen different places and heard a dozen different accents. One night we got back so late most places were closed. We heard a guy speak Subwaynese that evening. If you’ve never been, we would highly recommend a trip to San Francisco.
August
Emily still has a couple of weeks of work at the lake before she heads back to Wittenberg. And Sarabeth is starting high school soccer. Tryouts and then two-a-day practices for a couple of weeks. Sarabeth officially becomes a freshman on the 14th. That also happens to be Jane and my anniversary. 31 years. Isn’t that amazing? Excuse me while I go give her a kiss….OK, I know that sounded sweet, but next time remind me not to try that kind of stunt during “American Idol”. Emily is back at college four days later. It was a little easier this year. We didn’t bother to bring a lot of the stuff that we took the year before. Like the iron that never made it out of the box. And 90% of the clothes. It seems a couple of pair of jeans, 2 hoodies and a pair of flip-flops will take care of a college sophomore for the better part of a year. And a year’s worth of girl’s underwear now a days will fit in a shoebox. The rest of the month is spent picking Sara up after soccer practice and then getting home and starting homework. She is taking a lot of tough classes, and the load is fairly heavy. I hope she does well this year! Oh, who am I kidding? By the time you get this letter she will nearly be a sophomore. I know how well she does. She is doing quite well. She is taking all AP and Honors classes and is 5th in a class of 820.[1]
September and October
These two months kind of ran together this year. I have some fun and exciting Willis activities that happened around this time, but I really don’t remember in exactly what order they happened. But since only a few of you will be able to figure out the correct order of events, it really doesn’t matter. Near the end of September, we all went to visit Emily for “Family Weekend” That’s one of those fun weekends when Emily is afraid to introduce us to her friends, afraid that we will embarrass her. And the friends are scared also, because their parents are there too. We went to a musical revue the first night and then out to dinner with said friends and parents. We had a great time. It’s neat how Emily’s fun friends have fun parents. We took turns embarrassing our children. The next day we went to a volleyball game, then to the football game, back for more volleyball and then watched the girls’ soccer team. It was a great time, and I really like the small school atmosphere. Emily knew most of the players during most of the games. We sat in the bleachers next to the president of the college. Sarabeth bought a Coke and hotdog at the football game and it cost me $3. It’s a bit different than my time spent at IU.
A week later I was back in Ohio. My brother Bob and I were going to build a deck for my sister Marky. We started early Saturday and with help from friend Gary and nephew Erik, got most of the framework completed. Sunday was all decking and the finishing touches. We work pretty well together. He’s the kind of guy that actually reads instructions and plans things out. He washes a wall before painting it because it says to on the can. I paint the wall, so I don’t have to wash it. But we even each other out and end up with a nice, finished product. I didn’t let him make one dovetail joint on the entire deck and he actually made me measure before cutting. What a team.
The next evening was bowling night. It’s the night I flex my muscles a bit. Serious competition. Church league. That’s when I beat up on the sweet little old ladies. Hey, life’s tough, and just because they’re over 80 doesn’t mean I should ease up on them. It’s for their own good. Anyway, I had a Christmas letter night. No, I didn’t bowl my first 300 game. But I came close. I had the first 11. One more strike and I could collect on a 25-year-old $100 bet with Jerry Veal. One more strike and I could mark something off of my life’s “To Do” list. I am so amazed that the ball actually stayed on the lane on that last shot. I threw a pretty weak ball and left three standing for a 297. The crowd that was planning on going wild, moaned, politely applauded and walked away. My teammates and the sweet little old ladies congratulated me and patted me on the back. It was a fun night. Maybe next time.
Later in the month it was time for our yearly trip to Brown County. It was different this year because Emily had a couple of days off at the beginning of the week and Sarabeth had the last two days of the week for fall break. Since we take this same little vacation trip every year and do the same stuff each time, both girls have plenty of fond memories of Brown County. That came in handy for Emily since she didn’t get to go with us this year. But it did put extra pressure on Sarabeth. She was now responsible for Emily’s share of mischief along with her own. She quickly introduced me to Silly String. We managed to do the required shopping, hiking and general leaf looking. The next week I went to Orlando for my yearly convention. Quickly down and back in about three days. Had a great time, but since I didn’t take any pictures, I’ll just toss in a basic pretty Brown County tree.
November
The highlight of the month was Thanksgiving. This year we invited Jane’s family to our house. It proved to be a good idea since we got to see everyone AND the house got really clean. Everyone showed up so that means there were 15 of us. Jane cooked a big turkey, and we ate and sat around and talked and then ate a little more. While we were sitting around the kids were playing the Wii video game. Jane’s brother Jon has 4 boys, from Sarabeth’s age down to about 5. Well, these boys were all over that game. They were jumping around going wild. Big time competition. Loud and crazy, like boys should be. As you can tell from the photo, they about wore out Emily and Sarabeth. Well, this went on for quit awhile until I noticed Betsy and Carrie sitting quietly on the couch watching. Those are Jane’s sister Marybeth’s daughters. Same ages as my girls. I thought I should see to it that they get a chance play also. All the cousins should get a chance. I figured the boys could show them how to play. I figured wrong. When asked, they said sure, they would like to give it try. At that point they went to their respective purses and pulled out their own personal, customized Wii controllers. Much like a scene from a movie that we’ve all seen plenty of times, these ladies started kicking butt and taking names. I can only guess that they acquired these skills through some sort of New Age 4H project. They dominated! I have a feeling that they probably made it home with some extra money in their pockets too. It was a good day.
December
One of the best parts about having the Finley clan up for Thanksgiving was the fact that we spent a lot of time getting the house nice and clean. That came in real handy about a week later when Emily brought some friends home from college for the weekend. Emily is very involved with Young Life, a Christian organization that works with high school kids. Well, there was a speaker in Indy on Friday night that they were interested in hearing, so the ladies of the group decided it was time for a road trip. They came to our house late Friday after the program. About 24 girls, 18 of which ended up spending the night all over our house. In every room on every bed, couch or air mattress available. It was a really fun group of girls. It was worth all the trouble just to watch the pizza delivery guy carry a 3-foot tall stack of boxes up the sidewalk. It kind of had a Dr. Seuss look to it. By the way, one of the other 6 girls was from Indy, so they stayed at her house. They were welcome here. Don’t really know why they declined the invitation.
Next it was time for Christmas. It was decided that this year we would have our family Christmas in Columbus, OH. Marky was there and her son Erik had just bought a house and was dying to show it off. So, we had two places to sleep. Everyone arrived either Friday night or early Saturday morning. We did all the stuff that we normally do when we get together. We tell stories and play games and drink a bit and just plain act silly. We have a big dinner and exchange gifts. It’s really fun because we all pretty much like each other. A few squabbles every now and then, but for the most part we behave much more like the Cleavers than the Osbournes. I’m not sure where we will celebrate the Willis family Christmas next year, but let it be known that the Columbus contingent set the bar pretty high. For the first time ever this year, there was no kid’s table. Erik is the oldest “kid”. He’s over 30 but this was the first year he got to sit at the table with the real grownups. He rigged up a table that comfortably sat all 17 of us. That may be hard to match. We also got to spend time out in his yard drinking beer around a bonfire. I believe we could turn that into a new Willis Christmas tradition. We headed back to Indy for our own family Christmas. Gotta be home when Santa comes. Went to the Christmas Eve service at church. Sarabeth managed to pass out in the middle of her scripture reading. All you could see was her legs sticking out from behind the pulpit. We drug her out of there and Emily went up and finished her reading. I don’t think anyone noticed. Christmas was a happy day. Just spent it hanging around the house. We all had the week off and spent a fun time just relaxing together. Finally, New Years Eve arrived. No big party for us. It came and then it was done. Soon after, I started planning this Christmas letter.
That’s all we got. 2007 was pretty good to the Willis family. Thanks for all your cards and letters around the holiday season. And for emails with dirty jokes the rest of the year. Give us a call sometime. Or stop by. As long as there are no more than 18 of you at a time, we know we can handle it. If you’re getting this letter we would love to see you. We’ll leave you with a couple of photos of the boys, Kirby and Scout. These pictures were taken right after I read them this letter. I think they believe they should have been featured a bit more prominently in this work of art. But what do they know about writing Christmas letters? They’re just dogs.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Wayne, Jane, Emily and Sarabeth
[1] It is my Christmas letter and I reserve the right to brag about my daughter’s accomplishments even if her mother is the only one that can genetically take any credit for said accomplishments.
