Historically, Quakers don't celebrate traditional holidays, because we believe every day is equally holy. So beyond some strung-up lights and watching "The Holdovers," Christmas, as a day, doesn鈥檛 mean much to me.
But as an earnest sap, I can鈥檛 help but love that comes with Jesus鈥檚 birth: 鈥淧eace on earth and good will toward men.鈥� That phrase sums up so much of the meaning of this season to me: that , we have faced the cold and the dark by gathering together and wishing the best for each other.
I like knowing that our ancestors, too, had the urge to gather together when times were coldest, to decorate with light (candle or otherwise) when things were darkest, and to eat a lot of carbs when the nights were shortest.
We choose to connect with one another around this time of year, across holidays of all different locations and traditions and faiths, precisely because it is when the world is darkest and we feel our most alone.
I feel so lucky that part of my job is to encourage people to connect this way all year long. 鈥檚 tagline states we report on news and neighbors from all over the state. I believe that every Ohioan is my neighbor, and the more time I spend in this job, the more convinced of it I become. This year, through our reporting, I saw how different cities with similar solutions. I saw my own neighborhood school鈥檚 struggle . And I saw how we can all hold a shared pride in our state, whether we are a or or .
When we wrote that tagline in the early days of our newsroom, we could only hope to live up to it. With a team of just three, it was unclear just how expansive our reporting would become. Now, two and a half years in, we鈥檝e visited 85 counties. In the past 12 months, we talked with more than 300 Ohioans. And next year, we are expanding our team with a reporter dedicated to news and neighbors in Appalachia.
And while we鈥檝e covered important issues like the disbursement of and critical current events like the of across , the stories I remember most are always, always people-driven. It鈥檚 the 90-year-old who worked on , it鈥檚 , it鈥檚 the . Those are the Ohioans I鈥檓 proud to call my neighbors. I can鈥檛 wait to introduce you to many more of them next year.
Until then, peace on earth, and good will toward neighbors.
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