It is hard to believe that it has been three years since we faced the first Christmas of the pandemic. Living in our quarantine bubbles, we deployed masks and hand sanitizers when we had to venture out to work or get food and tried to stay connected to each other via the screens of our phones, computers, and televisions. As we cheered on the first responders and grocery store workers doing their part to keep us alive, we worried about the economic impact of the shutdowns and whether our supplies of toilet paper and cat food would outlast the shortages. Back then, just thinking about not being able to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with our friends and families made us wonder if life would ever return to normal.

What a difference a few years make! Testing ourselves for Covid, relying on vaccines to provide immunity, and returning to our normal activities without masks all seem normal. Travel is up, airline flights are crowded, and public gatherings are legal again. It is tempting to slide back into our routines and hope that this will be the last pandemic of our lifetimes. But experiencing traumatic events can provide us with the opportunity to grow and rethink our assumptions about the future. So, what did we learn from the pandemic? And how can we use those insights to light the way in 2024?

For one, social connections aren’t a luxury, they are a necessity. One of the things we recognized during the pandemic is that we're social beings, who thrive when we are surrounded by people who meet our social needs. For those of........

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