This holiday season, and as we approach the new year, it is practically a universal concept to take stock, reflect, and express gratitude to whom we are grateful.

So it is appropriate this week that as a community, we should thank our fellow Americans and the countless individuals, groups, and officials from around the globe who — beginning nine years ago this week — began flooding Newtown with love, support, and offers of medical, technical, logistical, and financial assistance.

As news of our Sandy Hook Elementary School quickly and sadly became known on and in the days following December 14, 2012, tens of thousands of people, from presidents, prime ministers, monarchs, chairmen, chancellors, and CEOs, to classrooms full of children and educators, celebrities of every genre, and individuals of every age, heritage, religion, and socioeconomic stratum also began reaching out.

Among the gracious efforts of those so horrified, shocked, and sorry, and who wanted to just do something — were offers to send ponies, and puppies, to underwrite full scholarships to immediate survivors’ siblings, and to cover expenses, travel costs, and other immediate needs for the most impacted families. Inspired songs, poems, and very personal artistic creations of every size, color, and dimension also rolled in — particularly to the Municipal Center, Police Department, to our fire stations, ambulance headquarters, and even to our offices here at The Newtown Bee.

They came in bags and boxes along with or accompanied by letters, cards, notes, teddy bears, and toys. Oh so many plush huggable critters of all sizes began arriving — ditto the hundreds of dolls, dozens of tricycles, bicycles, musical instruments, video and board games, books, art supplies, DVDs, and every other type of plaything a child might enjoy — likely with the hope of distracting Newtown’s children even for a few moments from the difficult times they were certainly experiencing.

Almost everyone from everywhere, it seemed, wanted to reach out in some way and give all our nearly 30,000 residents a truly heartbroken and heartfelt embrace.

Their rush to respond crashed phone systems and servers, and packed postal and delivery service vehicles for not weeks, but months with these beautiful gestures and gifts that required both warehouse space and a team of curators to intake, off-load, inventory, and eventually safeguard, distribute, or, unfortunately, dispose of.

And while any mention of the dark, disturbed, denying trolls who sought to hurt or attack our community is not worth another drop of ink, it should be noted their numbers were and continue to be fractional to the ones who just showed up. Thousands poured into our relatively small town with even more outpourings of condolence, donations, flowers, and other personal mementos that created mountains of tributes and makeshift memorials that spilled into several Sandy Hook roadways.

So this week, as we continue to mourn the brilliant lives that were so purposefully, mercilessly extinguished on 12/14, our community can hopefully find some solace by extending positive energy and gratitude to the legion of perfect strangers across the country and around the world. In Newtown’s darkest days, these strangers responded to our community’s irreplaceable losses with love. They energized us with creative expressions to inspire resilience, and showered us with support to remind us that no matter how desolate we might feel, we were (and are) not alone.