That is hurtful of your brother not to acknowledge you like that. One of my brothers, the one closest to me in age is 2 years older than I am and we were once in the same high school. We were at a football game and I went up to him to borrow money to get a drink or something and he gave it to me but the girl he was with said, "Pat, I didn't know you had a sister!" almost in pleasure, like I was a welcome surprise. But then my brother said, "Well, I don't publicize the fact." So much for being a pleasant surprise :-)

I find your title an indication of the conflict within you. The rejection by your brother and the hurt it causes but the sibling-like "retaliation" too. It could be that you, being so much older and not seeming to take much interest in him growing up have in some way shown those mixed feelings and he's reading them. You expect to be rejected by your brother and are hurt at that but he might be feeling the same things? He is younger too so it could be harder for him to approach "big sis" who's "ahead" of him and he might resent that and be showing it. With the story you have told here, you didn't "need" the "said sarcastically" in your title, we would have gathered that from the story itself. He may be showing his hurt by not only not greeting you but by going even further and totally ignoring you.

Were I you, I'd go hug him or at least stick out your hand to shake his next time you see him (Christmas?) and then say something conversational like "How's life treating you?" to gauge his response and feelings about you. Do you have any fun/"fond"/sarcastic memories of him at all? My brother I mention above use to say he was getting me "a box of Kleenex" (or napkins, whichever you prefer :-) for my Christmas present when we were younger. It's conceivable, if I saw him for Christmas I'd wrap a box of Kleenex just as a "connection" that we would both "get" and go from there.

My brother lives in Hawaii and I live in Maryland. When my stepsister and I broke up my stepmother's house back in 1998 or so, there was a small table my father made when we were about 6 and 8, out of a baseball bat :-) He made a round base, cut the baseball bat "ends" off and fixed them to the base and another round top, slightly larger and my stepmother painted the whole thing black. It was to go next to a chair in the living room so people would have a place to put their drink. It was a simple thing but enchanting, as you can imagine, to we children; it still had the "markings" in the side of the bat telling what kind, weight, etc. Here was a baseball bat made into a table :-) Anyway, when my stepsister and I broke up my stepmother's house I took the table and mailed it to my brother in Hawaii (since it didn't weigh much) as he had been rejecting his childhood completely for many years (would not accept any silver or other family heirlooms, etc.) but I still wanted him to have something, preferably something I didn't think he'd "mind" so much and of which he would only have fond memories (and which was made by our father from a "boy" product) and was "practical" to him. That worked and he even thanked me for it :-)