Today's thought...How did we get so off course...????

Okay this is going to be a nostalgia post, I know, but you know what? It's Christmas. I don't care. I'm going there. How did this world get so strange? How is it that this world got to the point that it's in now? And not just in America, EVERYWHERE!!!

I was talking to my mom tonight, and we got into a convo about Christmas past. When times were simpler. When it was just us three families, and really just one. It was my grandma and grandpa, and their three kids, their kids included. I remember Christmas. Going to my aunts house, eating at the table in the living room, Mom and Dad, Son and wife, Daughter and husband, Daughter, five children, and usually someone who was adopted into the family at some point by someone. That's what I remember. Those are the times I cherish.

Of course, this was years ago. Times do change. People move away, people pass to heaven, lives grow, children have children and so on and so forth. But is it so strange for me to want my child, to have the same memories I do? But alas, she can't. My little girl doesn't have what I have. She isn't going to have the memories of the whole family getting together. Because the generation she's growing up in, we don't have such things.

Christmas isn't about getting together as much any more. Christmas is about Skyping with the parents that aren't close enough to be here. It's about seeing the pictures of the cousins on Facebook and trying to share it. It's about seeing the parents that thankfully CAN be there, and hope that THAT side of the family is able to be together, and not stuck working or otherwise.

And it makes me sad. I get it. I realize that Christmas should be the last time of the year that I should be sad, but it does make me sad. Christmas isn't what it used to be. My little girl is NEVER going to be able to have the memories I did. Then my mom, smartest woman in the world, tells me that I need to make my own memories for my daughter, so that she has something to take with her in the future.

Then we get into a conversation about how much times have changed, and family dynamics are a thing of the past and how much our world has changed. When did my relationship with my mom, something that I hold so sacred, and so dear, become so out of the realm, that I look around, and I can't find more than one or two people that I know, that have the same relationship with their mom's as I do?

Or even my daddy. And I mean, I totally get that mine and my mom's relationship or even mine and my dad's, is special. But (literally, I can count on one had) the people I know, don't have even remotely CLOSE to the relationship with their parents as I have. How did this happen? How is it parents and children have gotten to the point that they're so estranged from each other, that the relationship isn't anywhere close to what it should be? How is it we've gotten so far away from what family is, that we don't know where it's from any more? Why isn't my relationship with my mom, the norm?

I'm not complaining at all, don't get me wrong. But seriously!? My friends look at me like I'm on crack, when I talk about things I discuss with my mom. Why? When did this world get away from being able to talk to our parents? When did this world get to the point that family get-togethers, and family dynamics, stopped being basic connections to the other person, period? When did we get away from what family is really about?

Am I just that strange? Is my relationship with my mom, just that different from the norm? Is it just that wrong, to want my daughter, to know half of what I did growing up?