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Williams Family
Christmas
2002
Welcome
one and all to the annual Christmas letter.
A reminder once again that if you received this in the snail mail (which
means you are very special!) and want to save a tree, just email us and ask us
to remove you from the list and access the letter, with pictures, at www.williamsclan.org. If you are reading this on the web page and
you really need it mailed to you each year, also email to let us know. Addresses have changed:
Damianwilliams at cox.net
Lisawilliams at cox.net
Jennlamar at cox.net
Kimberlywilliams at cox.net
2chriswilliams at cox.net
autumnwilliams at cox.net
We ended 2001 with lots of wonderful holiday
gatherings and celebrations. The WGA
party finally changed locations, to the Radison in Anaheim, but it was
certainly no improvement over the beautiful view of Balboa we had in past
years. Lisa abandoned the traditional
winter dress code and wore a pastel pink sequined dress, looking like a
snowflake princess Barbie. Jennifer
said, “Mom, you look really buff.” Not
exactly the look Lisa was after in her strapless evening gown. Chris and Autumn sang in Myford’s first
annual winter program. Karaoke at Mike
and Sheila’s seems to have become a New Years Eve tradition. We had gone through so many keys for so many
songs that it is amazing that we didn’t quite make it up ‘til midnight this
year.
Since
Jennifer had discovered we needed motorcycle licenses to ride our moped, it was
time for motorcycle riding classes. We’re
not sure “discovered” is quite the right word when the officer has you pulled
over, but it was enough to have Lisa sign her and Jennifer up for classes in
January. Jenn was required to take the
course because she is under the age of 21 and Lisa took the course because she
was too chicken to take the riding agility test at the DMV. Damian’s still not legal, but thinks he
looks good on “His” scooter at 35 mph.
Since we had a piano that no one knew how to play, it was time for
lessons for Kim, Chris and Autumn.
Chris and Autumn were thoroughly bored with it all, but Kim has a
chance. Her enthusiasm for it really
shows on birthdays as she will play “Happy Birthday to You” in the living room
while we all sing in the kitchen. She
insists we wait for her to run back in before anyone blows out candles,
though. Even Foxy had to go to school –
puppy kindergarten. She didn’t learn
much, she just pulled on the choke chain ‘til she made herself puke. Lisa’s sister Pam came to visit for the day
on the same day Damian went to a running race and football game with his WGA
friends. The race was between Jody Chow
(“Mr. Wong,” as Kim calls him), Mike, and Damian. Jody had slipped and fell and claims there is no official winner,
while Mike and Damian claim victory.
Funny thing, but Jody hasn’t volunteered for a re-match. We went to Georgia’s 3rd birthday
party, where we were visited by The Little Mermaid. Then, we went to Jake’s 6th birthday party at 
Bullwinkle’s.
Autumn lost her first tooth that day.
Jennifer and her Model United Nations team traveled to Connecticut to
participate in a conference at Yale University. While there, they ate at Mystic Pizza, visited the Mystic
Aquarium, and went to New York City. In
New York, they visited the UN building, the World Trade Center “ground zero,”
the Statue of Liberty and Times Square, and they ice skated in Central Park and
went to a Broadway show. We got a call
from the school principal at about 10:00 at night (1:00 a.m. New York
time). Oh, No! What kind of trouble can she be in at 1:00
in the morning in New York City? As it
turns out, Jenn was not in trouble, but the principal said she had a rash and
wouldn’t stop crying. Are you the bad
parent if you tell the principal “just give her whatever will put her to sleep?”
In
February, we hosted the Super Bowl at our house. Well, not the actual Super Bowl, but the viewing of it on
television. Damian and Mike
participated in the “Race Around The Base” 5k run. Though they run four miles every morning on the treadmill at the
gym, an outdoor race with hundreds of people was much tougher than
expected. We bought a little white
truck and let Jennifer use it for school and work. It seemed she had no hope of saving for her own car, and since
Lisa returned to school, we just couldn’t get all six of us where we needed to
be every day with two cars. However, it was only a few weeks before we
discovered a huge puddle of oil under the truck and Damian spent every spare
weekend for the next several months re-building the engine. Jennifer asked “is the truck ready yet?” so
many times that Damian wrote the word “NO” on a piece of paper and stuck it to
the fridge. He told her if she ever
wanted to know if the truck was ready, she could check the paper on the fridge.
The
year after we moved to Irvine, we were asked if we would volunteer our garage
as a polling place for the presidential election, since at that time there were
no public buildings in our district, only residences. Our neighbors complained and begged us never to do it again. Not a bad idea, considering Damian had to
clean out the garage, take a vacation day, and work 16 hours straight, all for
$125. When they solicited us again for
the March elections, we didn’t respond.
Next thing we know, we get a letter that says “thank you for
volunteering a polling place.” So, we
did it again. At least this time the
lines were shorter. As students for Myford
Elementary’s inaugural year, Autumn, Chris and their classmates each painted
decorative tiles that will be permanently displayed at the school.
Chris
took his friends Ryan, Justin, Sean, Brandon and Jeffrey to the Discovery
Science Center for his 9th birthday in April. Nick, Jake and Georgia joined us for the St.
Thomas More egg hunt, followed by Easter egg coloring and dinner at our
house. Nick won two of the grand
prizes! Jennifer had good news 
and bad news this month. She was pulled over again for failing to come to a complete stop
at a stop sign while riding the moped.
This time she was ticketed, too bad she did not “discover” what the
officer meant by “Complete Stop” the last time. The good news is she and her new boyfriend, Kevin, went to the
Prom.
May
starts off with the birth of our newest niece, Rebecca, born to parents Tricia
and Pat. Little Nick, at 16 months old,
isn’t the baby anymore. Damian’s
sister, Mary, began teaching last year and she just finished her Master’s
degree. It’s hard to believe that “the
blond” is the most educated one of the family.
During a spelling test, Mary told her 5th grade students she
couldn’t think of a sentence for the word “sting-y.” One of the students asked, “Miss Williams, don’t you mean
‘stin-gy’?” You just have to love her. For Myford’s carnival, we volunteered to
donate cotton candy supplies and run the cotton candy booth. Lisa and Kim had the easy job of collecting
the tickets, but Damian had the job of making the cotton candy, which basically
means he was up to his ears in sticky, pink sugar. But, it was the most popular booth.
School
ended in June and Jennifer continued working at Albertson’s even though she was
transferred when her store closed for re-modeling. Chris and Autumn go to day camp and have daily activities like
field trips, water days, wheel days and so on.
Kim just lays around watching television all day and occasionally gets
dressed before Damian gets home at 4:30.
Kim did volunteer to take care of Mouse Man, her science class’ mouse
for the summer because her teacher was “on vacation.” The last time we had a mouse in our house (the variety that does
not live in a cage), Foxy killed it and delivered it to our doorstep. So, not only does the mouse cause Foxy to
want to sneak upstairs, but he’s stinky and nocturnal. Nocturnal means he stays up all night
running on his wheel making so much noise that Kim can’t even sleep in her own
room. After last year, we decided that
hotel room service was such a great anniversary celebration, we did it again
this year – our 13th. We
stayed at the Embassy Suites. It wasn’t
quite as nice as the Marriott, but still a good time. Rebecca and our great-niece Brianna were baptized, with a party
afterward with Pat’s family. Damian and
Mary are Rebecca’s Godparents, God help her.
It was back to the Keelson Avenue for 4th
of July, and this year the boys roasted a pig.
There’s nothing like a 150 lb. whole pig on a spit in your front yard to
get people to slow down as they drive by.
For days afterward, we had barbecue pig, pig burritos, pig burgers and
any other dish Damian could sneak it into.
Jennifer’s boyfriend, Kevin, (who is 6’5” and on the varsity volleyball
team) just couldn’t wait to play volleyball on the 4th. We don’t think he knew was he was in for, as
skill alone is no match against the aggression and cheating of “jungle
ball.” But, it’s a big improvement over
Jennifer’s last boyfriend, who was a vegetarian and didn’t like large
gatherings. Kim was finally placed in a
horse-riding specialty unit at the Girl Scouts’ Camp Scherman. Yeah!!!
Autumn took swimming lessons this summer, after she nearly downed at
friends birthday party. She did pretty
well, except on the last day when they all jumped off the diving board and
Autumn refused. She didn’t realize Lisa
was watching and after class said “I jumped off the diving board.” When Lisa told her she had been watching and
knew Autumn didn’t jump, Autumn said “I couldn’t because the teachers weren’t
holding the kids when they swam to the side and I can’t swim in 10 feet water,
I can only swim in 3 feet water.” On
July 14 of our calendar, someone wrote “Got the truck to turn over due largely
to Tom Buddy’s help.” We’re not sure
why it says that, but the truck is running and ready for sale – to someone we
don’t know and who doesn’t know where we live.
You know what P.T. Barnum says . . .
While Jennifer was away for the weekend camping with her Dad, we bought
a 1970 convertible VW Bug. Jenn still
won’t admit that she likes the car, though the cow-print seat covers are pretty
cool. This month Lisa had the chance to
have a 
short but sweet visit with her Mom while on a
business trip in Las Vegas. The
Williams girls also went on their annual trip to Palm Springs, with shopping spa-ing
and baking in the 120 degree heat. We've
been planning for months having an adults-only monthly dinner outing and we
finally got together with Mike and Sheila, Mike and Lisa Bershaw, Danny (the
lost Williams brother) and Beth, and our designated drivers, Tom and
Priscilla. We went to Florence
Restaurant to do some reconnaissance for the site of the WGA 2002 holiday
dinner. We tried to pretend that we
were classy people who dine out often.
But in the middle of dinner Lisa let out a scream and tipped over her
chair when Damian accidentally knocked his red wine all over the white table
cloths and Lisa's lap. Then, when we
got the bill, we discovered that "tonight's special red wine" that
we'd been drinking (and spilling) all night was $40 per bottle. "Uh, . . . can we put this on the
credit card?"
After
the group dinner, Damian and Lisa signed up for a cooking class at The Florence
Restaurant. It turned out to be more of
an infomercial than a class (we didn’t actually cook), but it was still kind of
fun. We had the same waiter - we think
he was afraid of us. For the first time
ever, we took a family vacation with just the six of us. We drove out to Phoenix and stayed with Tom,
Pricilla and Miranda for the weekend.
While there, we helped Kathi and Jeff celebrate their 22nd
wedding anniversary and went to the Big Surf water park. Those Phoenicians don't go out to the water
until it's 100 degrees. Since it was
only 95 degrees, the 
park wasn't very crowded. Then, we drove on to the Grand Canyon. On the first day, Damian made us hike the Canyon – at least to
the mile and a half rest house. Let’s
just say it was a once in a lifetime experience, as Damian was not sure he was
going to get Lisa back out and was not going to raise these kids by
himself. Jennifer’s souvenir tee-shirt
says it all “I
HIKED, dragged
myself, complained, nearly passed out and barely made it out of THE GRAND CANYON. The second day we drove to the Painted Desert and Petrified
Forest and stopped in the small town of Williams. For $13 Lisa 
bought every item they had in the store that said
“Williams.” On the way out of the Grand
Canyon to the Petrified Forest a Highway Patrolman stopped to inform us “though
this looks like an innocuous road, we do have a number of collisions out here,
particularly of the head-on variety.
Why, just last year a tour bus driver bent down for a moment to pick
something up, crossed the double yellow line and collided with a minivan towing
a camper trailer, sending over 50 people to the hospital. This is truly the middle of nowhere – the
nearest ambulance station is 30 miles away.”
Damian had “Discovered” all those two-dollar words added up to about
$140 and a day in traffic school. On
the last day, we drove to the east end of the Canyon for a sunset walk. We had big plans to dress western style and
take our family photos. We should have
known it was a bad omen when we forgot to bring the tripod. Then, we realized that our family bonding
experience was one day too long when both Kim and Autumn had major
meltdowns. After re-doing her hair 15
times, Kim was upset that it wasn’t 
perfect for the pictures. Someday, when you see the famous photo “Sad Girl on Rock” you’ll
know – that’s our Kim. Autumn was
crying because Chris told her there was going to be a meteor shower
tonight. She thought that meant that
the meteors were going to come crashing into the Earth. Luckily, during the half-hour lecture about
all the people who’ve come to the Grand Canyon over the years, their tears
dried up. But it was so hard to tell,
because by this time it was windy and raining.
The rain cleared up in time for us to see the sunset, and for everyone
except us to stake out a perfect picture-taking spot. We did have Ranger Brian take two pictures of us – one with Kim’s
eyes closed and one with Chris making a face.
You received the latter on the Holiday card to make up for Kim’s “Sad
Girl on Rock” picture. While we were
gone Foxy stayed with Mary’s dog, Presley.
They chased each other all week, then Foxy came home and slept for two
days. As soon as we returned, we had
the Fantasy Football draft day. As
usual, those people left us with a week’s worth of food and they didn’t even
finish off the pig chili!
In
September the kids returned to school – Jennifer is a senior, Kim is in seventh
grade, Chris is in fourth grade, Autumn is in second grade, and Mouse Man
repeated sixth grade, again (YEAH!!!).
Chris began his second year of soccer with the Blue Dragons. They didn’t win much, but they learned a lot
and had a whole lot of fun. Autumn
chose to go to Wild Rivers with three of her friends for her 7th
birthday, and this year it 
was warm enough that we did not have to stay in the
jacuzzi. Kim went to Disneyland for
her birthday and also took her “Santa Ana” friends Laura, Sarah and Ashley to
the park for her 12th birthday.
They ate lunch at the Blue Bayou restaurant and Kim ordered the prime
rib. When lunch arrived Kim had to ask
Lisa quizzically, “Mom were are the ribs?”
Somewhere during all this Damian had his birthday, but not with quite as
much celebrating. He’s so happy with
his upgraded TIVO memory, and keeps mumbling something about 140 hours of TV.
Cake
week ends in October with Lisa’s birthday – She had Damian cook her up some
Thai peanut chicken, mmm, mmm, good!
Damian couldn’t believe Lisa wanted a doctor’s scale for her
birthday. Damian figured this was like
a woman asking if a dress makes her look too big, and he knows the answer to
that one. He wasn’t going to buy it
until Lisa finally convinced him that, although it was not very romantic, it
was all she really wanted. For
Halloween, Damian added a “Jacob’s Ladder” and alien to the flying ghost. Kim was a devil, Chris was Yugi and Autumn
was an angel. A lady leaving the
haunted house said to Autumn “you’re just too sweet and cute to scare
anyone.” Then after Autumn went into
the garage a lady came out laughing “oh, my gosh, I was so scared, I thought
that little girl was a doll and then she moved!” We may have to make this a full-scale haunted house next
year. The kids don’t want to trick or
treat with Mom anymore, anyway. We went
to a party at Mary, Heather and EV’s for Halloween. Damian and Lisa were dressed as Sir Lancelot and Geneviere. This is when we discovered that Kevin had
hit the 6-month boyfriend limit and was now replaced by her homecoming date,
Danny. That’s okay, those who miss
Kevin can visit him at Target any time.
Tom and Priscilla had their new baby girl, Isabella Marie Adeline
Williams (“I’m a” Williams) this month, as well. Jenn went on another trip with her Model United Nations group,
this time to University of Virginia and Washington, D.C. No phone calls from the principal, this
time. They almost cancelled the trip
because of the D.C. area sniper.
Luckily, police caught the bad guy the day before the kids were
scheduled to leave.
Mom
Williams’ birthday was celebrated a Buca Di Beppo this year. The following week, we attended a party for
Nick’s second birthday at Pat and Tricia’s house. Tricia always loves a piñata and everyone else is always
surprised that no one was wacked in the head.
Thanksgiving weekend was rather busy.
We went to Mom and Dad Williams for tur-duck-en without the duck, along
with roast beef, ham and very full bellies.
There was some grumbling when Mike declared that snacks must be out by 10:00
am. Kathi, Jeff and their family and
Tom, Priscilla and their girls came from Arizona for the weekend. We played the new Trivial Pursuit. The boys won the first round. After over three hours the second round was
nearly a draw, but the girls finally pulled through! After marathon shopping (including a new Dodge Durango for
Damian) on Friday and Saturday, we went out to dinner to celebrate Mike and
Sheila’s anniversary. We couldn’t let
them celebrate it alone if it meant an adults dinner out at Kings Fish
House. They have the best BBQ Shrimp
and freely give out the recipe.
The
Thanksgiving weekend was brought to a close with traditional ladies ornament
exchange at Knott’s Berry Farm on December 1.
The night may be for the ladies, but the leftover fried chicken is for
Damian. WGA had their holiday party at
Florence restaurant. There was no wine
spillage, and everyone seemed to have an excellent time. Jennifer is turning 18 and once again, she
still hasn’t decided what she wants to do for her birthday, except get a
tattoo. We decided that’s not going to
be a family-sponsored event. We have
our tree and lights up and we’re ready for the Jolly Ol’ Elf.
In
closing, we wish you all peace, health and happiness in the New Year.
Damian, Lisa, Jennifer, Kimberly,
Chris, Autumn and Foxy