Why is living so big? These are the reasons.

This was a long, strange year. I missed my family terribly, and phone calls started to feel the same, week after week.

Every December, my friends and I have a cookie exchange party, with eggnog and Christmas music. This year, we couldn't get together. So we did a doorstep version.

This Halloween, my neighbor and I wanted the kids to trick-or-treat but keep their distance. So we built a candy chute.

In October, our church turned its parking lot into a drive-in movie theater. They rented a giant inflatable screen and a projector, and broadcast the sound over an FM radio station. The first movie was The Princess Bride.

I'm a wedding photographer, and this spring, all my weddings were postponed. I was restless. So I started walking around my neighborhood with my camera, offering to take pictures of families on their front porches, from the sidewalk, for free.

I roller skated every Friday night at the rink when I was thirteen. Then I grew up, and my skates went into a box. This spring, I bought a new pair of roller skates off the internet: white, with pink wheels. I'm fifty-two.

I'm an accountant. I hadn't painted anything since grade school. But in March, I bought a cheap set of watercolors and a pad of paper and promised myself I would paint one small picture every day, no matter how bad it was.

I've always done our daughter's hair in the mornings. This summer, I took a new job with an early shift, and suddenly my husband was in charge. He had never braided anything in his life.

In May, a fox dug a den under the shed at the back of our yard. A week later, four tiny kits came tumbling out into the sunlight.

We'd planned a camping trip to the mountains this summer. When it was canceled, my kids were heartbroken. So we brought camping to the backyard.

My son is eleven and got a skateboard for his birthday in August. He watched videos for a week and then announced that I needed to learn too, because "you need a hobby, Dad."

I live in a tiny apartment with no yard. This summer I decided I wanted to grow something anyway, so I bought three pots and some soil and lined them up on my fire escape.

My nine-year-old son opened a restaurant this summer. It was in our dining room. It was open on Saturday nights only, and my wife and I were the only customers.

In the spring, everyone on the internet was making a whipped coffee drink: instant coffee, sugar and hot water whipped into a fluffy foam and spooned over cold milk. I made it out of boredom. I kept making it because of my husband.

I live a few miles from a lake that I've swum in every summer since childhood. This year, the beach didn't open until June. By the first warm Sunday, I was itching to get in.

Three of my oldest friends and I have a tradition. Every February, we drive up to a cabin on a frozen lake in northern Minnesota with a wood-fired sauna on the shore. We've been doing it for twenty-two years.

My daughter turned seven in April, the spring when everything was closed. She'd been planning her party since Christmas. When I told her it couldn't happen, she nodded bravely and went to her room. I sat in the kitchen feeling terrible.

That spring, when everyone was staying home, our apartment building got very quiet. You'd hear a door close somewhere, maybe a TV, and that was it.

My family is spread across four countries: Canada, England, Egypt and Malaysia. We used to see each other once every few years, at weddings. This spring, when everyone was stuck at home, my cousin in London started a weekly video game night.

In March, someone in our neighborhood started putting teddy bears in their front windows, so kids out for walks could go on a "bear hunt." Within a week, there were bears everywhere.