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I feel close to my immediate family, even to some of my more extended family like aunts, uncles, cousins. My extended family live in other cities a day drive away, so we only get together about once a year, but I still feel close to a lot of them.
However, I don't really socialize with my immediate family, they are not part of my circle of friends. So we only get together on holidays or celebrations like birthdays, marriages etc. and that ends up being every couple months or so. There are usually reasons we talk on the phone more frequently so it feels like we're more in touch than the personal visits may indicate. My sisters and I especially talk a lot about taking care of our mom, making sure she's OK, seeing the right doctor at the right time, helping her do things she needs help with.
My dad died almost ten years ago but it was about the same back then; my mom lives about a 20 min. drive and I visit her once a week; my one brother and his two kids live with my mom so I see them once a week. My two sisters live less than 1/2 hour away, each with their own family, so I see them every few weeks or so. My other brother is less connected to the rest of us, even when he lived closer, but now he lives a couple hours away with my nephew and his family and we see them a couple times a year.
So even though we don't all see each other "a lot" I'm sure we would all agree that we're still close to each other. Sure there has been some drama here and there between some of us, but nothing that would permanently shatter the family connection.
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