Araceli Robles, 43, recalls a life-changing pact she made with her six brothers and sisters as a young child. They swore to always be best friends and live in the same city.

Not every child in her family remembers that specific deal. But Robles is the eldest of the seven, and as the eldest of six, I tend to trust first-born accounts.

Regardless of whether the pact was formal or just an understood consensus, the bonds they formed as children did end up changing the direction of several lives.

The Garcia children grew up in DeKalb, Illinois, a rural town in the northern part of the state. Their parents had emigrated from Mexico and left their own families behind.

"We grew up very broke," said Ivan Garcia, 41. "My mom and dad were incredibly hard workers. We were each others' best friends growing up because we didn't have a lot of activities outside the home."

For a while, three of the four brothers shared a single bed together, as did two of the sisters.

Their tight family bond was a product of choice and of circumstance, he explained. When you don't have much money or extended family nearby, and when you're one of only two Mexican families in town, your brothers and sisters are your constant playmates. Ivan was ready to leave it all behind when he attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale for graduate school. He and his fiancee headed to St. Louis in 1998 to attend chiropractic school. They changed their minds at the last minute, got jobs and started investing in real estate.

And that's when the great migration began. Ivan invited his brother Berto, who had been traveling while working for General Electric, to join them in St. Louis. Berto quit his job and moved into their back porch, which lacked air conditioning and heat, and spent the winter there. He slept on a mattress with their two dogs for warmth. He quickly landed work and began investing in real estate, as well.

When Ivan and his fiancee, Jenifer, got married in 1999, his younger brother, Johnny, met the bride's younger sister, Amelia, at the wedding. Johnny decided St. Louis might be the place for him, as well. (He and Amelia later got married.)

Johnny and older brother Miguel had been especially close growing up, so Miguel decided he could do his work as an IT consultant and Web developer remotely -- from St. Louis.

"Truth be told, we were having a good time, and no one wanted to be left out," Johnny said.

By then, they had decided to merge their real estate pursuits and create a family business, Garcia Properties.

Araceli followed a decade ago with her husband and children, and it was just a matter of time before they lured their parents and remaining sisters from Illinois. They persuaded Anna, a registered nurse in DeKalb, to join the company as a real estate agent.

"As a nurse, I saw many people alone when they were sick or at the end of their life. I made a note of that and thought, 'I want to be together. I want to live close,'" Anna said. Plus, she wanted to be able to see her nieces and nephews whenever any of them wanted to.

The youngest, Aileen, moved shortly before her parents did.

Today, most of the siblings live within a city block of one another. Six of them work together. They gather weekly for Sunday dinner at their parents' house and for a constant stream of birthdays, baptisms and confirmations.

For so many college-educated adult children to have relocated to a new city, largely drawn by familial ties, is unusual.

Economics professor Robert Pollak, of the Olin Business School at Washington University, co-authored a paper on a 2009 study looking at how often adult children live near their mothers. Adult children with college degrees are much less likely to live with or near their mothers, the study found. Among couples who both have college degrees, about half live more than 30 miles from both of their mothers and only 18 percent live within 30 miles of both mothers. But among couples who have no college degree, the situation is reversed. A college degree increases the chance of mobility and career opportunities away from one's hometown.

Moving was a daunting prospect for the Garcia parents after laying down roots for so long. "We had the comfort of the city where we called home for 30 years, we had all of our friends, our church community, and all the memories we had of our children growing up, but what we didn't have was our actual children," their mother said. A close friend of theirs asked why they were moving to the city.

"That is where our children are," she said. There was a moment of silence, and the friend responded, "You are truly blessed to have all your children in one city. My children are all over the country, coast to coast, and I won't live to see the day with my children all under the same roof again."

That conversation made the move easier.

"It made things clear for us," she said.

For those of us who do not get a visit from Santa this time of year, there can be some slightly awkward holiday moments.

Like the time in elementary school when my teacher instructed the class to write about our favorite Christmas gifts. I was afraid that if I wrote the truth, I might flunk the assignment, so I made up descriptions of new sweaters and toys. The few times I dared to tell classmates that Christmas morning was just like any other morning in our house, they looked at me with such disbelief and pity that I figured it was better to spare them the shock. It was a bit isolating to be left out of what seemed to be such a communal holiday.

And now, my children have had to negotiate their own responses to the well-intentioned questions by strangers and acquaintances.

We were waiting in line at the deli when a kindly older man leaned over to ask my then-preschooler what Santa was bringing her. She looked him square in the eye and said: "Nothing."

He got flustered, and I felt a little sorry for him. Every year, my children will be asked this question over and over by adults in malls, grocery stores and on the playground.

We've talked to our children about how each religion has its own special days, and remind them about our celebrations. My daughter accepted this explanation right away. But when my son kept insisting that surely Santa would visit his house, I got them each little presents and talked about the spirit of giving during this time of year.

I've never felt that the festivities of another culture or religion threaten my own. Our children should feel at ease appreciating their differences, and feel comfort in what they recognize as their own traditions.

To be honest, I'm a sucker for Christmas. I'll sing carols in the car or while shopping. I have several boxes of silver ornaments, garland on our fireplace and miniature decorative trees on our tables. I love buying gifts, and I can't resist holiday parties or cookies. I mail holiday cards with Eid stamps on the envelopes.

And as an adult, I've realized that it's a great time of year to celebrate as an outsider. I can enjoy the beauty of the season without the stress of unrealistic expectations. I'm glad my children don't get struck by the gimmes. Instead, we can adopt families who need gifts. We can tell people like our garbage workers, newspaper delivery man and neighbors that we appreciate them.

This year, I persuaded my spouse to string some lights on the pillars outside our home. It just looks festive. My youngest looked at me and said, "You know we don't celebrate Christmas, Mama."

I said: "I know. We're just having some holiday spirit."

A couple of nights later, he told me the Hanukkah story in surprising and accurate detail. He heard it last year from a parent volunteer who came to share the story with his class, and again this year from the school librarian.

I was impressed with his rendition. It seemed fitting for a season celebrating peace and love to have my Muslim child share a Jewish story days before we shopped for his teachers' Christmas gifts.

So, from our family to yours: Have a wonderful holiday, however you choose to celebrate.

I'm struggling to name another parent more different from myself and my peers than Adrian Peterson or Mama June.

It's not because they are celebrities -- one famous athlete and one questionable reality TV star.

It's because each of them behaved in ways this year that seemed far outside what's considered normal by conventional parenting standards. For parents who question themselves nearly as often as they feel judged by others, the misdeeds of celebrity parents seem to push the rest of us up the bell curve.

Public parenting mistakes may seem like the safest way to pass judgment on a person everyone knows, but no one knows personally. Yet even when they remind us which lines we would not cross, they reveal something about our culture and about ourselves. To attempt to distance ourselves from the most egregious parenting behaviors is to miss the opportunity to see the big picture.

NFL running back Adrian Peterson has not played for the Minnesota Vikings since September, when he was charged with abusing his 4-year-old son. He pleaded no contest in November to misdemeanor reckless assault for hitting his son with a wooden switch, which caused welts and bleeding on the child's back, legs, buttocks, genitals and ankles.

If America had watched a video of a 6-foot, 217-pound man whipping a 4-year-old boy's bare body, would there be any question about whether that man committed a crime? Probably not. It's one thing to debate appropriate discipline, but it's another to actually see a professional football player take a switch 10 to 15 times to a preschool-age child to the point that it draws blood and leaves marks days later.

Even parents who have spanked their children, and many have, wouldn't go this far.

But who among us has not felt a moment of fury, an outsized reaction to a child's misbehavior that pushed our buttons beyond our rational self? What if our worst parenting moments were recorded and posted for the world to see?

Peterson's actions reminded us how easy it can be to escalate a situation and how easily a grown adult can seriously hurt a small child.

Another person out of a job this year because of questionable parenting was reality TV star "Mama June" Shannon, the matriarch of TLC's now-canceled "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." She allegedly renewed a relationship with Mark McDaniel, the man who reportedly molested her daughter when the girl was 8 years old. Although Shannon denies dating McDaniel, her pattern of behavior suggests deep denial about the severity of what her daughter suffered.

Child sexual abuse is far more common than most adults would like to believe. Most researchers who study the prevalence of child sexual abuse suggest the rate is between 8 percent to 20 percent of all children.

The true prevalence of child sexual abuse is not known, because victims are reluctant to report it. Even so, the Children's Assessment Center in Houston estimates that there will be 500,000 babies born in the U.S. this year who will be sexually abused before they turn 18.

And yet, many adults doubt a child's accusations made against a relative, popular teacher, coach or religious leader. Research has consistently shown that few abusers are ever identified or incarcerated. Estimates suggest that only 3 percent of all cases of child sexual abuse, and only 12 percent of rapes involving children, are ever reported to police, according to data from the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence. Relatively few accused offenders are ever investigated or charged.

There is a culture of denial toward the problem of child sexual abuse; most people don't want to believe children were victimized or that trusted adults abused them.

But this culture of denial extends beyond the realm of horrific felonies. Plenty of ordinary parents deny, ignore or rationalize our own less-than-stellar parenting moments. We might not physically take out our rage on our children, but maybe we vent our frustration by yelling in anger. We may not be cable TV-level stage moms, but maybe we put our children in a social media spotlight they haven't asked for.

If we are honest, most parents can find hints of Adrian Peterson's criminal overreaction or Mama June's deep well of denial within us.

It's infinitely easier to change the channel than confront that uncomfortable notion.