Uh oh! I did not buy any holiday gifts this year. I hope nobody tries to give me any. Hopefully, I will be able to re-gift my way into breakeven.

it would have been nice to have the last large group gathering together.

I think about this point a lot though with regards to the future of my family gatherings. My mom was the only child of a single mom, so there isn't much family on her side. My dad is one of four brothers, and all 4 stayed local to the New York City area, so when my family would get together for the holidays, one of the four brothers would host the rest of the family.

Each brother hosted different events, so there was a bit of a tradition for who would host which events. There are a total of 9 cousins in the 2nd generation now that all the grandparents have passed, and the only three that have left the area are my three siblings. The other five cousins are around, but not necessarily as close as my dad's generation.

Will we even host family get togethers once my dad's generation dies off? Who knows. It doesn't seem especially important to the younger generation for sure. The youngest cousin is 25 and only one of the nine of us are currently married with kids (my sister in Israel with 3 kids). It will be telling to see how our family manages to stay together once our parents are no longer around. I'm not even sure how much of 3rd generation there will be for our family since four of us won't have kids and there's no guarantee that the other four will either. Signs of the times as birthrates continue to shrink, my family following the same tune.