Celebrating the Coming Holiday Season and Ourselves

As we head towards Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays, the year seems to feel like it's accelerating (so maybe I should have written 'as we careen towards the holidays'). Perhaps because the daylight has shifted, the days are all shorter and more jammed with activities. Personal calendars that were already pretty full are now loaded with holiday parties, travel, shopping outings and all kinds of other activities. 

So I can understand your momentary exasperation when here I am lobbying you to put yet another event into the mix but, trust me on this one, you'll thank me later. This Saturday, starting at ten and running through the middle of the afternoon, is the Tenth Plus One (a/k/a Eleventh) Annual O'tis a Festival at the Otis Library, a self-proclaimed "Holiday Extravaganza" with many local area artisans offering beautiful handmade items absolutely perfect for gifting to others (and, since charity begins at home,, also keeping for yourself).

I've regarded Otis Library on Main Street in Norwich for many years as the last man standing who is just now (finally) being rewarded for steadfastness. A decade ago, there was very nearly nothing in downtown, aside from, we assured one another, lots of potential. And now, after a lot of heavy lifting, risk-taking, and plain old-fashioned hard work from a lot of different folks, there are actual (and flourishing) businesses lining the streets leading to the library with the promise of even more on the way. 

As the Norwich Community Development Corporation's "City on the Rise" promotional videos making the rounds on a variety of social media platforms underscore, there's a lot more happening in Down City than many of us once believed would be possible. And at just about the middle of the intersection between promise and performance is the Otis Library.

As urban planners and developers from across the country have repeatedly insisted because it's completely true, Otis and countless libraries nationwide are not close to the same places we went to as kids, wherever that library was. Here in Norwich and elsewhere I'm sure, city downtown districts look to the library the way the fingers on the hand look to the thumb.  

Saturday's O'tis a Festival is another instance of a library not staying in the box we may have mentally constructed for it. When the festival began over a decade ago, it was sort of a book fair with a smattering of 'other stuff.' But as the years have progressed, the local and community artists and artisans have turned just about all the free floor space in the library into an arts and crafts market (think Rose City Arts Festival, but indoors, because it's November and not June, and without the bouncy castle (I think)).

There will be over three dozen vendors, free take-home crafts for the kids (I'm not sure that means in exchange for your children or just something for them to do), displays of Native American artifacts, and eats. There's entertainment, raffles, and a visit from Santa throughout the day. 

And if you're worried about parking, don't be as 'celebrity parkers' to include local TV news community personalities toward Primo Parking Spots to assure your walk back to your car laden with presents and gifts is as short as possible.

We always talk about having a 'community center' and, at least a day, this Saturday, we will in the Otis Library, bustling with more activities than either of us could otherwise imagine. And since nothing succeeds like success, the more of this we all support, the more of this we will all have to support (it's science, I think). 

Vibrant downtowns are all about feet on the street and O'tis a Festival is another way of putting our best foot forward. So step out and step up. Celebrate the coming holiday season and yourself.

-bill kenny