‘Tis the season… AGAIN. My expectations of the holidays this year were really high. (Uh oh.) I confess that I gazed with longing at the Christmas crud stashed in our garage when I was doing some summer cleaning in June. Not even kidding. Visions of sugar plums? You betcha.
But, it’s all come to a flaming, fizzling heap: picture Clark Griswold’s immolated Christmas 
tree, only not so funny. My alcoholic brother–who says he’s not an alcoholic–has been drying out at our mother’s since September like a fig that got left out of the pudding. After a year and half of his erratic behavior (note the euphemism), my partner and I let him know that, without his acknowledgment of the disease and an effort to be honest about what it’s doing to him and to our family, we just can’t move forward with a relationship. Now, dear ma-mah has determined that it’s not really his alcoholism that’s causing all his problems (it’s his Type 1 diabetes, says she), and all this squabbling between siblings is BEYOND inconvenient at the holidays. The villain in this piece is me, by the way.
In addition to playing Grinch in the extended family’s Christmas pageant, I get to play Bob Cratchit at home with partner and kids. A 
contract I’d been depending on to pay for Christmas didn’t come through, and now there is LITERALLY no money for presents. Maybe less like Mr. Cratchit, then, and more like the aforementioned Mr. Griswold. Oh if ONLY I had a redneck cousin Eddie who could kidnap the nefarious spoiler of my generous plans to lavish gifts upon my family!
Leave it to this ungrateful alcoholic to think she’s the only girl in Santa’s lap.
It’s my expectations, of course, ruining the season. Not my mother or brother or even the faceless bureaucrat who canceled my contract work. The problems I have today would seem unfathomably simple to the woman who started this blog two years ago. It is as if, now that I have a tiny bit of sobriety under my belt, I feel I’m “entitled” to expectations–that all that stuff about not having any, or having very few, is for people who don’t have anything at all (like I was, two years ago). But now, look at me! Good job, repaired relationships, a foundation in recovery…. Surely an expectation or three at CHRISTMAS is acceptable? It’s Christmas for Christ’s sake!
As it turns out… this not having expectations thing applies to me too. And the rule doesn’t 
take a holiday break. So, the only thing left to do is the NEXT RIGHT THING.
And here are a few of Next Right Things…. (You can sing it…)
1. Be grateful for my ridiculously blessed first world problems.
2. Remember that my best memories of the holidays were squinting at the tree and waking up cold in the morning and playing croquet in the snow–not of the presents or the perfect dinner or even the fact that everyone got along.
3. Stick out an olive branch to my brother. Apparently, he went to a meeting. It’s not up to me to judge what that means, but it is up to me to say that if he’s willing, lines of communication are open.
4. Go help my aunt, who lost her husband last month, clean out her house. Now that the contract is in the waste can, I have TIME to do more of the next right things… write cards…spend more time with my partner and kids. Sometimes I hide behind work. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.
The moral of this Christmas play?
Expectatiions. Duh.
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