Budgets are always hard the first year or two, because you can't possibly think of all of those little one-offs ahead of time. So, yes, I have a "miscellaneous" category, but it is also limited, because I don't want that to become the dumping ground for other things that I didn't plan well enough for. So as you go through this, I'd suggest asking yourself whether this is something that you can predict and should plan for in the future -- if so, it probably needs to be accounted for in some category.
Pets: you know you have pets. Ergo, all incidental pet expenses need to be accounted for in a category.
Alcohol: you know you drink alcohol. Ditto. Personally, we consider that either groceries or entertainment, depending on whether it is at home or out.
Birthdays: you know people have birthdays. If you like them, you may want to buy them a gift or send a card. Ergo, category.
OTOH, "Misc" for me would be something like a parking ticket or a late fee, or something that is really too minor/infrequent to merit its own category.
Note that these don't need to be precise for each and every month -- the idea is to make sure that everything averages out over the course of the month. So e.g. if you save $100/mo for gifts, that would cover holidays, birthdays, weddings, etc.; even if a particular month is high, you're fine as long as the year stays below $1200.
This is also why I keep my budget below my actual monthly expenses, because shit happens.