This time of year sucks. It really does. You know why? Expectations are the devil.

Everyone has to have a story to tell about their holiday. I’m guilty of this myself with the post I wrote yesterday. This is what I did, got, saw, ate and sang on Christmas, yadda yadda yadda.

If you don’t have a great story to tell about how awesome your Thanksgiving/Hanukkah/Christmas/New Years Eve was, people feel badly for you. I should know. When I still lived in a different state than the rest of my family, my Christmas tradition was to spend the day alone in my pajamas, eating junk food and watching bad movies.

“What did you do for Christmas?”

“I ate a huge bag of Doritos and a pint of Ben And Jerry’s, watched Escape From New York and didn’t leave the house, shower or get dressed. It was awesome!”

“Oh. That’s so sad. Next year, you’re coming over to my house. I insist.”

People didn’t understand that, to me, my Christmas tradition was totally spectacularly awesome. While everyone else was rushing around from one crappy family gathering to another, I was relaxing at home. It was an entire day just for me to do whatever I felt like doing guilt-free. We spend so much time cooking and shopping and going places out of obligation that not doing any of that was the best gift of all.

Then, my sister moved to California and ruined everything. Not only do I have to spend the holidays with her, but my sister has a lot of expectations.

When I tell my sister about a party like I did on Christmas, if she didn’t get the invite herself, she’ll say, “Oh, well, I wasn’t invited,” to everything, all the time. It drives me nuts. As if my sister wouldn’t be invited to my best friend’s Christmas party. “Let’s see, I’ll invite Goldfish to a family-centric holiday party, but let’s not invite her sister who I call my own sister.”

My friends invite me to things with the expectation that my sister will probably come, too, since she usually comes, too. My friends are lazy. Why invite two people when you can invite one and that person will pass it on? At the last place I lived, my roommate and I had a lot of the same friends, so they’d tell one of us with the expectation that we’d tell the other. And you know what? That’s usually what happened. Never once in four years did my roommate say, “Oh, well, I wasn’t invited,” because he knew that I was in the process of inviting him. But, my sister gets all weird about it. If she wasn’t personally handed an invitation, she feels slighted. Bah. It’s goddamn annoying and makes me do this every time:

Part of the problem with my sister is that, in the decade that she’s lived here, she’s yet to really make any of her own friends, which is really strange since she’s way friendlier and nicer than I am. Most of her friends are my friends. It doesn’t really bother me. Although, sometimes it does, because I can’t go out and do something with one of my friends without “Oh, well, I wasn’t invited.” No, as a matter of fact, you weren’t invited. I don’t have to do everything with you all the time.

Sometimes, she does things with my friends, like going to see a movie that I’m not invited to and I don’t whinge about it, because I don’t care. If I wanted to go see Fast & Furious 14, I would, but I don’t care. It’s totally hypocritical of her though and that hypocrisy drives me loony.

I’m only allowed to go hang out with my best friend or Male without her being all weird about it. Everything else gets the “Oh, well, I wasn’t invited.” GAH!

There are two holidays down and only one to go, but New Years is the worst. New Years breeds the most expectation from my sister and everyone else.

Male was thinking of coming home for New Years, which would have been nice, because he’s one of two people I’m allowed to do something with without wanting to kill my sister. We could have done something or nothing and it would have been nice. However, that was before he checked the cost of tickets. $1000 is a bit steep, so no Male for New Years. Sadface.

My friends and I still have no idea what we’re going to be doing for New Years Eve. It doesn’t really matter to me. I have no expectations. I just can’t wait for it to be over, so life can resume to its normal, boring pace without expectations and parties people weren’t invited to. If I make it through without getting as angry as William Shatner, it will be a Christmas Miracle.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, FUCKERS.