Family, Take 2

It's funny. Family can be both a good thing, and a bad thing. Depends on how you look at it. Yes, people can live their lives trying to keep their families together. There are those, on the opposite side, who spend their lives keeping their families apart. I wonder sometimes at my husband's family. If they 'try' to keep their family apart. They have so many problems, that if they really looked at the problems and tried to solve them, it might work and they could be a 'family' again. It's almost like they choose to create more problems tho' instead of fixing the existing ones. Drives me crazy how much problems they have, that they refuse to look at.
Then there's my family, and my Grandma goes out of her way to accomodate my uncle and his family (who want nothing to do with my family) just to try and keep us together. Does my uncle even notice how hard she's trying? Doubtful. He doesn't even care.
Where do we draw the line? When do we stop working on our 'old' families and work on the new ones we are creating and neglecting? Or do we ever? Do we constantly work at keeping (or breaking) them all?

Some friends of ours are taking in their niece-in-law. I think it's a cool thing. Someone in their family is having a rough time, so they've offered to help out and take the toddler in. I know they'll be great at it. They deserve kids of their own. They're creating a different family. Then there are those whose friends are more family to them, then their actual family is. What do you do when you want to keep your family together, but they want nothing to do with you?

Family...it's so complicated. This Christmas, I pray that visiting your families is very uncomplicated and that your able to just enjoy being around them. Enjoy the times with your family.