Merry Christmas From Borm's Family

We celebrate Christmas a week early in my family. Contrary to what most Catholics believe, Jesus Christ was ten days premature. The Virgin Mary had an immaculate Cesarean section in the manger on December 15th. She and Joseph decided to throw a party for baby Jesus a week later. She sent evites to all her friends in Bethlehem stating that "Jesus' Birthday is on the 25th." At that time, Mary had made a slight typo error and didn't catch the omission of the word "Bash" after the word "Birthday." It was supposed to have read, "Jesus' Birthday Bash is on the 25th." However, the battery on her MacBook Pro was running low, so she went ahead and clicked the send button. She didn't think much of this until one of the three kings officially put down on Jesus' birth certificate that he was born on December 25th because of what Mary had noted in the evite. Who would have thought that the omission of this one word would have changed history? We are purists in my family, so we prefer to celebrate the birth of the Holy Christ on his actual birth date. Hence, my whole family gathered on Christmas Eve, December 17th.


All kidding (or blasphemy, depending on which side of pew your are kneeling on) aside, my mom got tired of absent family members during the holidays because of in-law issues, and so she changed tradition so that everyone can be together on Christmas. Stroke of genius. Now my brother John has no excuses for not driving up to the Bay Area in December. No more, "we can't make it because we have to be at so and so parents' place blah blah blah." This is a good thing because no one is excluded. I always say that Christmas Eve is really for the kids, but in reality, we adults have a whole lot of fun as well. At first, it was really strange celebrating Christmas Eve a week early, but we got used to it. What I haven't really been able to adjust to is the Premature Christmas Eve Mass. There's no Christmas church songs, no children dressed up as the three kings, and no barn yard animals. It's just another mass. I always feel like a tourist at St. Luke's on this special night. I only go to church twice a year, so everything always feels so foreign to me. But all the prayers came back to me like the lyrics of old eighties pop tunes that I haven't heard in 20 years. I praised the Lord as though I had never forgotten his word. My brother's wife Alma was quite impressed. She leaned into me and said, "Wow, you know the prayers." My response, "Um yeah. Now wake up and stop snoring, Alma." I guess you can take the boy of church, but you can't take the church out of the boy.

In any case, what started out as a joke has turned into a new Borm Family tradition: the patented Borm photoshop gift. A few years ago, I made funny Photoshop presents for my family. These were all inside jokes, and everyone always got a kick out of them. I've done this a few times already, and now it is expected that there is some sort of Photoshop concoction under the tree for each member of the family. Though my schedule is crazy busy, I managed to find time to make some customized photoshop projects. Hey, some peeps bake chocolate chip cookies, I whip up a batch of creativity. My family gets a kick out of these, and I sure do love their expressions when they unwrap and see what's in the frame. Below are three that got a lot of laughs.

Maybe next year I'll make DVDs. Who am I kidding? With my busy schedule, I was lucky to get these photoshopped projects done! Also, word on the street is that Evan Donn will be teaching Digital Workflow again next fall, so chances are that I will be stressing out at the end of fall 2008. What do they call this, a vicious cycle?