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Dear Docent Family,

It is holiday time—a time to excite the senses.  The wonderful sight of lights twinkling in the trees, the smell of evergreens, Christmas cookies and the oil of frying latkes.  And the sound of holiday music.  I grew up in a small Midwestern town (Indianapolis) with a traditional Christmas.  My favorite part was watching all the Christmas TV shows (this was the early 1970s)—“Charlie Brown Christmas”, “The Grinch”, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, “Frosty the Snowman”….and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”.

“Santa Claus is Coming to Town” featured stop-action animation.  The narrator was a postman (voiced by Fred Astaire), and the story explained many of the stories of Christmas like why the jolly one is called Santa Claus.  This show weirdly had a “bad guy”, a winter warlock (voiced by Keenan Wynn).  Of course, his icy heart melts in the end, and he sings a song called “Put one foot in front of the other”.  The point of the song is to encourage action and not to remain in your current place (ah….the ‘70s).  But I have always thought of this song when I find the going is getting tough.  I tell myself I must keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And that is how I feel entering our second COVID winter.  We must just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  If I look back, I see that by putting one foot in front of the other, we accomplished a lot in 2021.  The River Cruise came back, and departures grew over the summer.  Most core tours are back, and building tours are returning soon.  The CAC is going to “hibernate” a bit in January and February, quiet months even in the best of times.  The Center will be open only Friday through Monday, curtailing our tours a bit.  But, with the return of spring-like weather in June March(!), our tours will start to ramp up for the 2022 season!

As we turn the calendar page to 2022, we will be welcoming new docents to Docent Council.  You have chosen Cynthia Karabush, Erica Myles, and Lisa Pickell to serve you on the Council.  Please know that you can reach out to them (or any Docent Council member) with a question or concern.  We are your elected representatives!  Also, a warm welcome to Kathleen Carpenter, docent-at-large.  Kathleen was appointed by the Docent Council in December to complete the term of the elected Robin Bauer, who needs to devote additional time to her family.  Thanks to Cynthia, Erica, Lisa, Kathleen, and Robin for all you do for CAC.

A new year brings so much promise.  Unlike when we said goodbye and good riddance to 2020, this year of 2021 felt like an improvement.  We expect that a year from now we will look back on a 2022 that built on 2021. And that continued to improve and return toward something resembling normalcy.

In the meantime….we will keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Oh, and if you are itching to watch the video of the song, here is the You Tube link.  https://youtu.be/OORsz2d1H7s

Happy Holidays!

Kent

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