I still say that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are celebrated in differant ways and mabye their "Christmas" was actually held on Chistmas Eve, and that way, the family could travel back to Alabamy in a reasonable way......
and , its not like this family is a close knit family....the dad thought John-boy was dead for a while and the brother had no idea where he was for the last few years......
All true but it would be important to note that much of that is post-2001, after John Karr got divorced and left the country. The fact that there were family photos from Christmas 1996 with other family members (even if no picture of John in the photo has yet surfaced) would demonstrate that they weren't estranged from the rest of the family at that time, even if they weren't exactly the Waltons.