The original, less sunny, version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has been running through my head lately. In particular, I’ve been thinking about the line “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow,” which was changed to “Hang a shining star upon the highest bow” because Frank Sinatra wanted a jollier line to sing.

Muddling through is mostly we’ve been doing since March. Plenty of us have had enough of the muddling and hoped that we’d be done with it by the holidays. That would make a fine Hallmark Channel ending to the pandemic, wouldn’t it?

Instead, we got what infectious disease experts feared was going to happen for months — an almost-nationwide sustained spike in cases and hospitalizations as people spent more time congregating indoors, resulting in re-imposed restrictions for restaurants, gyms and even private gatherings at the time of the year for gathering. Merry? Happy? Not so much.

So we’re back to muddling through. Most of us likely celebrated scaled-back Thanksgivings and will do the same over the December holidays and into the new year. We will make do and maybe even pay more intention than usual to the quieter, yet meaningful, parts of the season and look to better, less restrictive days in 2021.

Until then, despite everything, let your hearts be light.

Early on in the pandemic, we started getting requests for recipes from members who were probably looking for more inspiration for the increased meal prep they were doing in lockdown. We added a recipe section to our website, started featuring recipes in the Shuttle more often and shifted the sourcing of our recipes in our eShopper.

As you may have noticed, those contributions have largely come from working members and staff, who take extra time to get them together, and often photograph their finished creations. A big thanks to them for their extra work. It’s a small, but valued contribution to helping people weather this year, and we’ll keep churning them out as long as folks find them valuable.