A Holiday Tradition

One thing to count on

It seems it has been one month since my last post. November was…a lot, and so sounding off on the many ridiculous things in my head felt like a poor use of time. I did write another installment in my Unified Sports series which I hope you check out, and hopefully got a few other things done as well. Those might also be fodder for a story in the coming days, but first, a story on a holiday tradition.

Caryn and I have a love/hate relationship with holiday cards. I’m going to write this delicately in hopes to not offend anyone, because it is always lovely to receive all the beautiful cards that have become a common part of the holiday season. I begrudge no one their desire to produce and share beautiful photographs of their family as a way to mark the passage of time and to present a lovely version of themselves. But I think we all understand it is a version of the Instagramification of our society in that the version we choose to share with the world isn’t always reflective of day-to-day reality. We all understand this, and again, I’m not judging. Caryn and my response has instead been to send out slightly more silly versions of cards, to reflect that we absolutely don’t have our shit together so let’s steer into the skid. Also, I mentioned November has been a bit of rough sledding, so the Cooksons will not be sending out a card this year. Maybe an Arbor Day card, so keep your eyes open for that.

Look, it’s another picture of Declan looking like Santa’s hostage even though he’s spent all day talking about seeing Santa! Probably not card worthy.

Somewhere along the way, we decided to turn the holiday card reception into a competition, because that’s what we do in our house. The rules are a little complicated, but essentially Caryn and I draft the families we think will most promptly send out their cards each year. It becomes a strategic exercise. We take numerous things into consideration, such as:

• This family always seems to be on top of things, so they get picked early

• This family recently had a baby so will be extra eager to share cute baby pictures

• OR, this family just had a baby and is likely overwhelmed so maybe they will be delayed in sending

• This family has older kids, so the parents may have more time for dealing with card logistics

Etcetera, etcetera. We haven’t held the draft yet, but I expect it will be happening today (and I will surely announce the winner in a later post). It is just a way for us to keep ourselves amused during this sometimes-stressful time and enjoy everyone’s beautiful smiling faces. But there is one card we look forward to every year that I can guarantee did not come from anyone reading this post.

Sometime in 2016 (I believe it was the summer, but I’m not positive) Caryn got into a car accident while driving to get lunch during her work day. I know it was 2016 because she was pregnant with Rory at the time. She didn’t feel like she suffered any real injuries, but given the circumstances she went to the hospital to make sure everything looked okay with the baby. I drove down and met her at the hospital, and thankfully everything was fine (though the jury remains out on whether or not Rory turned out okay).

Because she took an ambulance to the hospital, she then spent much of the afternoon on the phone trying to sort out with various tow trucks where her now-damaged car ended up. Eventually, the car was taken to A&R Body Speciality and Collision Works, I think mostly because it was close to the dealership where we bought the car. That is the one and only time our cars have been serviced by that particular business. To my memory, they did a perfectly fine job, and we perfectly reasonable to work with. Nothing out of the ordinary. You may be asking yourself, with everything going on in their lives, how does Joel remember the name of a body shop that serviced Caryn’s car almost 10 years ago? A fair question, and one with a very simple answer.

Every year, without fail, typically in the week after Thanksgiving, we get a holiday card from A&R Body Speciality and Collision Works. It has become such a great tradition that Caryn usually picks them in our card draft, because she remembers the card is coming — it has helped her beat me the last few times we’ve done the competition. Each year the picture features some type of muscle car in a scenic setting, and it makes us happy every time it comes through. I literally do not think about this business any other day of the year, except for the moment when that card arrives, and then I get a wonderful little jolt of joy.

I cannot imagine how big their holiday card mailing list must be if they do this for every customer they ever had. Does the list get culled at some point? Are we in jeopardy of being kicked off? It almost (ALMOST) makes me want to crash my car to insure this holiday tradition continues.

At the risk of making too big a deal about something small (though that is, in many ways, the essence of this newsletter) silly little traditions like these are tiny part of the fun of being an adult and a family. Caryn and I can laugh about this every year, and it’s a tiny little spark of nostalgia and shared spirit during the stress and tumult of December. Here’s to many more years of holiday cards from businesses we have used once in our lives! May the tradition continue forever!

Editor’s note: I’ve been revisiting The West Wing recently and it brought to mind something that gets mentioned in Season 1 when President Bartlet talks about throwing his hat over the wall. It’s essentially the flowery-prose Aaron Sorkin version of The Secret where you put a marker down in hopes that it inspires you to meet it. Well, I have grand traditions of doing similar things here at Chaos Theory, so let this be me throwing my hat over the wall. As I publish this on December 7, I will endeavor to publish a new story every day until January 1. That will hopefully give readers some welcome levity and distraction as we all navigate the holiday season.