Expectations:

If you are having CHILDREN attend an event, no matter how big or small, keep realistic expectations.

Over the many emails I received about Christmas horror stories, the general theme is that the host or hostess had completely unrealistic expectations as to what children are.

Case 1 of Unrealistic Expectations:
"Aunt Marie" from a small town in Ohio thought it was realistic to give a 3 year old his Christmas dinner on her ANTIQUE WEDDING CHINA!! and of course "Aunt Marie" went through the roof when the child knocked it off the table, on to the floor, where it shattered into many, many pieces. Then "Aunt Marie" proceded to tell her niece what a horrible parent she was and now the family is torn apart...

My advice: NEVER GIVE ANY CHILD ANTIQUE CHINA. Heck, I know adults who I would not serve on anything but paper!! Never, ever, ever expect that a child will have the ability to take care of something that fragile. NEVER. As a parent, if you see your child is being served on it- good lord! Intervene! Take that plate right out of their hands and look your aunt in the eyes and say NO. However, now that this has happened, if you truly want to get back on "Aunt Maries" good side, what I would do is to look through the internet for her china pattern, especially Ebay, and see if you can replace that plate. I once broke one of my Aunt's gorgeous antique plates by sheer accident (and I was 22 at the time) and it took a year, but I finally found someone on Ebay selling them. My Aunt told me over and over that I didn't have to, but when she got the plate the look on her face was worth it. In addition, I would also buy "Aunt Marie" a set of plastic children's plates. Know in your heart that the old woman was at fault for handing delicate bone china to a toddler, but don't dwell on it and do what you can to fix the problem. Remember time heals....

Case 2 of unrealistic expectations:
Dewayne from New Jersey sent me the classic tale of 2 brothers, and their families, but only one guest room at Grandma's. Dewayne was livid because he arrived at his parents house for Christmas only to find that he and his family of 4 had to go stay at the Red Roof Inn because his brother's family had gotten there first and there wasn't room for everyone. Dewayne considered it especially an insult because he wasn't expecting to have to pay for a trip to Grandma's house and he considers his brother to be much more financially well off.

My Advice: First of all, looks can be deceiving. You might think that your brother and his family are well off, they live in the big house, they have the nicer cars... but the truth may be radically different. There may be a family secret that you don't know about. My entire childhood, my Aunt Lucy spoiled us rotten. She not only bought us hundreds of dollars worth of toys, but as we grew older it turned into thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of jewelry. She had a fancy car, lived in a stunning home, and she took exotic vacations all over the world. We ALWAYS thought Aunt Lucy was the richest member of the family. And then the truth came out as her home was auctioned off, her car was auctioned off, her jewelry auctioned off and even after all of her material items were gone, she STILL had 75,000 of credit card debt. She could have retired 5 years ago and is working 2 jobs to make ends meet. So, the bottom line is don't make the situation worse by thinking that your rich brother cheated you, because that might not be the case. Instead, put the blame exactly where it needs to be: YOUR PARENTS. Mend things over with your brother, and fast, because he didn't set you up, your own parents did!!!!

As for your parents... oh my. Welcome to the dysfunctional family, brother, you fit right in. Your parents had to know that you all were not going to fit in their home. They should have let you know WELL in advance that you were going to be in a hotel. Then, they should have offered to cover some of the cost of that hotel. Finally, they should have made up a gift basket to make the hotel seem like not such a bad thing. We have stayed in many hotels on Christmas because one set of my grandparents had a 2 bedroom house that was about the same size as a postage stamp. But, with the gift basket, it wasn't bad at all. They would call us at the hotel at 5 am to let us know that Santa had come to their with house with our presents... I have a lot of good memories. However, you got blind sided. My advice is to have a frank talk with your parents about how you want things done DIFFERENTLY FOR NEXT CHRISTMAS. You won't get anywhere by discussing the bad things of this Christmas, but you will have some luck if you iron everything out for next Christmas. I would approach it like this: "Mom, Dad, I'd like to talk to you about what we can do next Christmas to make it more comfortable for me and my family. I have a few ideas I would like to run past you..."

Next Blog: Do NOT shoot your relatives the night before Christmas... even if they deserve it.