When Steve Jobs passed away in October it made me more sad than I thought it would. As a creative and artistic person I cannot imagine my life without Apple products; they are, quite simply, part of my family and I love them, so this year I decided to include them in this kind-of-a-joke Christmas card I sent to my parents (who don’t have any grandkids). I hope you enjoy reading it (or looking at my gingerbread snowflakes, if that was what you were looking for).  (Click the pictures to enlarge each page and read it in context, or just scroll down to read the text, which I’m pasting into the post.)

Merry Christmas from the Komm Family: Colette (almost 30), iMac (2.5 years), iPhone (11 months), iPad (5 weeks)

Christmas 2011

iMac has made quite the transition this year, going from being an only child for the last few years to suddenly being the big brother of two younger ones who are constantly trying to sync his music and documents, bombarding him with new photos, and trying to get him to charge their batteries. In January he also lost his lifelong best friend, iPod—who, sadly, was kidnapped at the gym (I think). It’s been hard for iMac; I have much less time to spend with him as I’m always chasing around after iPhone and iPad (those little ones are always on the go and so demanding of my attention!) but he and I spent some quality time earlier in the spring and then again this fall putting together some beautiful portfolios of my wedding dresses. In October, noticing that iMac was starting to feel a bit neglected, I upgraded his operating system and got him two new pets: Magic Mouse and Trackpad, which he just loves and they have so much fun together! iMac is also learning to use Quickbooks so that in the new year he can help track the finances of our family business: making fancy dresses.

At the end of January we welcomed our long anticipated iPhone into the family. He’s been such a blessing in my life; helping me to keep in touch with business contacts while i’m out and about—he can even process credit card payments and make client invoices! He loves to go running with me in Central Park while listening to music and he’s gotten really good at playing Tetris. iPhone and I made it to level 25 of Tetris together—what a bonding experience! But what I appreciate most about iPhone is that he has helped me find a cure to my insomnia: before bed we log into Netflix and put on a documentary—usually about dinosaurs or deep space; something that’s interesting enough that my brain doesn’t get caught up in random thoughts, but not so interesting that I have to pay too much attention—then I stand him up on my night table (I’m so proud that he can stand up on his own!) and drift off peacefully to sleep. Most nights I’m asleep within a half hour—something that I never thought possible!At the end of January we welcomed our long anticipated iPhone into the family. He’s been such a blessing in my life; helping me to keep in touch with business contacts while i’m out and about—he can even process credit card payments and make client invoices! He loves to go running with me in Central Park while listening to music and he’s gotten really good at playing Tetris. iPhone and I made it to level 25 of Tetris together—what a bonding experience! But what I appreciate most about iPhone is that he has helped me find a cure to my insomnia: before bed we log into Netflix and put on a documentary—usually about dinosaurs or deep space; something that’s interesting enough that my brain doesn’t get caught up in random thoughts, but not so interesting that I have to pay too much attention—then I stand him up on my night table (I’m so proud that he can stand up on his own!) and drift off peacefully to sleep. Most nights I’m asleep within a half hour—something that I never thought possible!

The most recent addition to our family came the day before Thanksgiving. From the moment I brought iPad home from the Apple Store he has loved to read! All he wants to do is read (and play Fruit Ninja), so I thought it was only fitting that the first book we read together would be the biography of iPad’s biological father, Steve Jobs, who sadly passed away before iPad came into our lives. It was a wonderful experience to read that book with iPad, curled up in bed, sometimes for hours, and even in the dark! Now iPad knows that he is the offspring of a real genius, something of which he is very proud!

Like any family, we’ve also had our share of bumps and bruises this year. Just a few weeks ago I went to wake up iPhone from a nap and he was completely unresponsive to my touch (and iMac’s attempt to charge his battery). Fearing that he might be in a coma, I rushed him to the Apple Store where multiple resuscitation attempts failed and he was given an emergency full-body transplant. Luckily, between his personality being stored on iCloud and all of the syncing that he’s done with his big brother, iMac, by the time I got him home he was, quite literally, as good as new and back to his old self. Then, on iPad’s one month birthday it became evident that although he is exceptionally gifted at reading, he has some developmental deficiencies with writing, so for Christmas I got him a wireless keyboard, and now he is helping me write this letter from the comfort of my bed!

All three of the kids love to play around on the internet and waste time on Facebook and I’m hoping that iPhone and iPad will start wasting more time on Twitter and WordPress to help the family business grow in the new year. All three of them have also been helping me figure out my next big website redesign for 2012; each of them has ideas about what they’d like to see and how it should be formatted so that they can each enjoy it on their own. Right now iMac is the only one in the family that can see it but that will soon be changing!

Colette has had a very busy year—especially the last few months—so she has really enjoyed taking some time off this week to celebrate Christmas (and make this letter). She’s enjoying playing with the new toys Santa brought her: a red 7-quart KitchenAid mixer (she’s made snowflake gingerbread cookies so far), and a Canon 60D DSLR camera with assorted lenses (with which she eventually plans to capture detail shots of the gowns she makes but is practicing right now by taking pictures of the cookies she made and all the Christmas decorations she put up in her apartment).

Well, 2011 has been a memorable year for our family and we hope it has been for yours too. We are looking forward to 2012 and wish you the very best this holiday season, and a very Happy New Year!

Love,

Colette (almost 30), iMac (2.5 years), iPhone (11 months), iPad (5 weeks)