Season’s greetings. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Joyeux noël. Happy Kwanzaa. Feliz navidad. Buon natale.

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, however you say it, we wish you all the best.

To echo the sentiments in our Page 2 editorial note to readers, as 2022 comes to a close let’s all look forward to more of what made the year great: COVID less dominant, (mainly thanks to masks and so many people being vaccinated), and our ability to mix, mingle and socialize restored after two years under wraps.

Humans are social beings and we need to interact with one another, so being able to do that made 2022 a memorable year for many of us.

We have said it many times before, but we feel privileged to serve Niagara-on-the-Lake, to have residents open their lives to us and allow us to share their stories with the world. And to have so many advertisers who entrust us with getting their message out to the community – because without those advertisers, there would be no Lake Report.

We’ve also documented repeatedly how kind and generous the people of this community tend to be to one another, especially when people are in need.

Of course, life is not all roses and rainbows. As your community voice, we must sometimes write about things that some people would rather not hear about. That’s journalism.

We’re happy to spread cheer and laud those who are deserving, but we will not simply be cheerleaders.

After a year in which The Lake Report was honoured with more awards than any other community newspaper in the country, we think it is important not to rest on our laurels.

That’s why we have expanded our coverage and increased our staff in the past few months – all with the aim of bringing you more news about the things that really matter here in NOTL.

This week, we are publishing our biggest regular edition ever. At 36 pages, we have exceeded the capacity of our printer to produce a paper with full colour on every page. That’s a little inside baseball, perhaps, but such growth is a reflection of the trust our readers and advertisers have placed in us.

Looking ahead to 2023, we have been working this fall on plans to bring you more high-calibre investigative journalism about NOTL and Niagara, and we will unveil more about those plans in the new year.

In the meantime, we can promise that any NOTL news, big, small or in between, is vital to us. We encourage you, as always, to let us know about any fun, cool, odd, interesting or important happenings in the community. If it is important to you, it is important to us.

The Lake Report returns on Jan. 5, but until then please go to our news website, NiagaraNow.com, for updates and all the latest news.

Happy New Year, NOTL.