I think for one thing it needs to be realized that we have a very "westernized" calender--it's bizarre to companies in places like Japan and China for instance the insanity and traditions we put ourselves through at this time of year. To them, that we strain ourselves, our post office, our budgets, our waistlines all in the name of  "family tradition" is to say the least "over compensating." In Confution tradion family gets emphasized every day, not just around the last 8 weeks of the 52 in the Julian calendar.

 Having said that, it's important to realize that not everyone in the rooms of al anon has a family per se. I, for one, have a "family" but I cannot safely participate in their functions; given the fact that my family becomes violent and vicios when they're drunk, I choose to not cause myself the duress of participating in these functions--this could also, on the one hand make my holidays rather lonely. But on the other hand, they make me very humble. I have found a way to be teachable and to live in a different style of thinking. To find a better way of being, of living, of thinking, this is the essence of growth, for me at least.

 Lastly, I think it is critical that we remember and commemorate the fact that we need not revel in our self pity. I cannot help but think upon the fact that one of the overriding pieces of pain in my research this term for African History was the reality that when any sort of attack was carried out, it was carried out in a tradition to wipe out entire generations of families. My research project was on the perticularly hideous Rwanda genocide, where neighbors killed neighbors, sisters killed brothers, and children killed parents. The current state of Rwanda is that there are simply so many orphans; so many criminals; so little places to sort these two extremes. How, the current question arises, can we rebuild a family from this dysfunction?

 The answer they've come up with is strangely familiar: One Day At A Time.