As I look back at this year’s stories in our Living section, I am particularly grateful to all of the people who sent stories and information in so that we could share it with our other readers. Whether it was an announcement about an upcoming play (in person or on Zoom) or a story about Christmas stockings and family traditions, part of what I am most proud of this past year are the contributions of our readers.

With the shortage of masks early on in the pandemic, Fay Abrahamsson of Killingworth was among the first to realize that if you want a job to get done, sometimes you just have to do it yourself. So she offered, and we eagerly took her up on, a story about how to make your own masks, which ran on April 16, “How to Sew a Cloth Covering Face Mask”.

The folks at Privé Swiss were among the first in the community to not only offer free online classes at the start of the pandemic, they also submitted an article on how to cook healthy food from pantry staples in the edition of April 23, “Using Pantry Staples with Chef Keith.”

And, one of my favorite writers, Lisa Nee of Madison, weighed in on April 30 and May 7 with one of my favorite columns, Homer the Flying Puppy (parts 1 and 2), with a wonderful story that had absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic and everything to do with what can happen when we open our hearts to the mysteries of the world.

Several readers shared photos we used with our Mother’s Day story, “Memories of Mom’s Kitchen,” on May 7, and, in that same edition, Liz Egan wrote about the pandemic’s go-to baked good, banana bread, which has been one of her family’s staples through generations, in “Delicious, Simple, Consistent, Comforting.”

Egan was a generous contributor throughout this past year, also writing about her mother’s clever way with food and purposeful leftovers on May 28. “Purposeful Leftovers: A Week of Delicious Meals for Four with Just One Shopping Trip.”

She wrote what I consider to be the definitive piece of bucklers, cobblers, and crisps on Sept. 23: “Is it a Buckle? A Cobbler? A Crisp?”

And she wrote one of my favorite stories all year, about Christmas stockings, traditions, and the true meaning of generosity and love on Dec. 24: “The Christmas Stocking.”

Also in May, Nee wrote another wonderful column for us, “And Then There Were Mothers.”

In July, Ethan Richmond and Dylan Richmond agreed to let us reprint the speech they gave during a Black Lives Matter event in Madison, one that allowed us to understand how a national movement connects to issues in our hometown, and work we have to do here: “‘So Now We Move. And Now We Change. And Now We March.’”

At that event, I also met Venice Moore and Vernon Moore, mental health experts who live in East Haven and run a company in North Haven. They later agreed to write a series of columns for Minority Mental Health Awareness Month in July: “Identifying and Breaking Patterns in Relation to Mental Health,” “We All Are Strong, But Trauma Is Real,” “Love Your Relationship, and Show Yourself Love, Too,” and “Healing Mental Health Matters!”

At the end of July, Christine Woodside of Deep River and Annie Gribbins, her sister from New Jersey, sent in a story about how they are preparing themselves for long term pandemic survival, using as a metaphor Annie’s husband Joe, who is an EMT. They noticed over the years that the more duffel bags he packs, the worse the emergency. They gave us ideas on how to deal with a one-duffle emergency, a two-duffle emergency, and a three duffle emergency. And heaven knows, most of us have had one or 10 of those this year: “An EMT’s Duffel Bags Provide Metaphor for Pandemic Survival.”

In August, Bob Crelin , a longtime member of the Astronomical Society of New Haven, reminded us to look up at night with “Finding Solace in the Night Sky.” He wrote: “To loosely quote Carl Sagan, under the stars we are reminded how all our worries, our triumphs, everyone and everything that we know and love exist merely on this tiny rock we call Earth. Gazing out into the vast universe we can get lost in the wonder of our place in a much grander scheme—a perfect elixir to ease the burden of these challenging times.”

Also in August, Jean Waters from Leap Frog Farm in Guilford reminded us what to do to fight mosquitos with “Don’t Breed Mosquitoes.”

And in September, Nee wrote a column to remind us that some good might yet come out of this mess that we are in. “Now that we all know how lousy it feels to be left out, let’s do something about it and become better at inclusion, even if we remain six feet apart,” she wrote, urging us to take action collectively to include those that our community often excludes and shunts to the sidelines in “From Isolation to Inclusion.”

And the North Haven Garden Club every year is so generous in its contributions to our paper that it’s been said in our office (back when we had an office) that there are some weeks that we could put out an entire paper of North Haven Garden Club news. And this year was no exception. Contributions that I particularly enjoyed were Cindy Golia’s pieces “How to Grow an Indoor Garden,” “Tips on How to Get an Amaryllis to Grow,” and “Chasing the Winter Blues Away with Teacups and Succulents.”

With all of the generous contributions of our readers, it was easier for us to then expand our coverage to a wide array of subjects new to our section. We were able to offer you information, in Food Court of all places, on where to buy toilet paper in April when there was none to be found. Thank you, David of Tea Kettle Restaurant! We wrote about Flutterby’s amazing Swedish dishcloths that were even better than paper towels. We gave you tips on how to keep your pets happy when, faced with the constant presence of you, their routines were disrupted.

We also wrote several articles on changes in the election process, how to apply for and properly cast an absentee ballot, and how to stay safe if you chose to vote in person. We kept you updated about the state’s evolving approach to the pandemic, with updates on Governor Ned Lamont’s press conferences. We covered how farmers markets were changing to stay safe during the pandemic, the start of a most unusual school year, and what promised to be a hurricane season like no other. We wrote about how to file for unemployment insurance and gave you tips on how to start up a new business from people who decided to just that, during this pandemic.

And, along with all of those serious subjects, we also spent a lot of time writing about how to have fun, while staying safe.

This year, for all of us, was a stretch. There were weeks when I wondered how I would do it again the next week, but the generous contributions of our readers kept coming through and ended up being some of my favorite stories this year.

As Woodside and Gribbons wrote in their article about how to survive a pandemic, part of getting through is surrounding yourself with your “team, good people and friends who support you.” To those who supported us this year, by offering stories, sending in information about events, writing letters to the editor, taking out ads, asking for home delivery, letting us know when we got it wrong, and offering us praise and support when we got it right, thank you. We are glad to be on your team.

Find links to all the articles referenced in this story at Zip06.com.