Family Unity Gone

We put up our Christmas tree and decorations today...  outside we have 3 boxes with lights that represent Christmas presents.  In the past, we have had a family of deer in our front yard but after several years, there was not much left to them, so they were put into the trash and hauled away to the landfill.

I look around my house and I see the Christmas tree lights and all the little figurines we have purchased over the years to sit around the house to create the Christmas mood...  but today, there is no mood...  no Christmas spirit.

Before our parents died, no matter where we lived, the three children would descend on Chapel Hill, NC to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day with them.  My sister lived next door, so she would just walk across.  My brother would fly in and out on Christmas day with him family and I would drive over with mine.

While we seldom agreed on anything that we discussed around the dinner table, we were all still with our parents and we WERE A LARGE FAMILY...

It has been several years since their deaths.  Our father died in 2001 and our mother about 12 years later.  It has been over 5 years since our mother has died and the three children have yet to come together for CHRISTMAS...  no one has even brought it up that this is something that we should do to honor the legacy of our parents.

Not coming together at Christmas HAS NOT RUINED Christmas for any of us...  but we just don't have the family closeness anymore that we had when our parents were alive.

I am 76.  My sister is 79.  My brother is 68.  My sister and I have remarried while our brother remains married with one child and one adopted.  My sister had one child and I had one child.  For all intents and purposes, we only communicate with each other at Christmas...  the rest of the time, we live our lives as if we were an only child.

I have no idea what my brother or sister thinks about Christmas and our parents but I feel we have let them down with our failure to remain close or even remain in touch more often.