South Of Broad's Holiday Season Opens Early, On Two Candlelit Nights And A Finished Seawall
On Murray Boulevard this month, the walk along the water runs on a raised promenade between landscaped medians, with safer crossings along the corridor. This is the first holiday season since the City of Charleston cut the ribbon on the Low Battery Restoration Project on February 18. The neighborhood's ticketed holiday programming runs from November 20 to December 20, and the event with the fewest spots comes first, the week before Thanksgiving. The rebuilt Battery is the one part of the season with no ticket and no start time.
Book the scarce event early. After that, fit the December events around a walk along the water.
The Low Battery project cost $71 million, most of it paid for by the city's hospitality tax, and it strengthened nearly 5,000 feet of the historic seawall. The City's completion announcement says the work came in under budget and took four phases, not the five originally planned.
Most of the work is out of sight. It included drainage improvements meant to prevent tidal flooding, and pieces of the original wall were recycled into the new roadway. At street level you can see:
The engineering firm was JMT and the contractor was Gulf Stream Construction. Councilmember Mike Seekings, a longtime advocate for strengthening the Battery, joined the ribbon-cutting. Here is how Mayor William Cogswell put it in the City's release:
"The Battery represents our history, our beauty, and our resilience. This project reflects our commitment to protecting all three."
The finished promenade matters for this season because the events below happen in the evening and are spread across a month. Murray Boulevard is the one setting that doesn't come with a date or a time.
The first event is also the hardest to get into. Historic Charleston Foundation's holiday candlelight tours at the Nathaniel Russell House run on just two evenings, Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21. Each night has four start times:
That's eight tours in all, about 45 minutes each. Tickets cost $45 per person, you need one to get in, and the Foundation recommends buying ahead. The tours are recommended for ages 12 and up.
The tour is built around a specific year. It shows how merchant Nathaniel Russell's household celebrated the holidays in 1808, when the dining room was the center of family life and formal dinners were set with imported porcelain, fine china and silver. The Foundation says the tour also looks at the work of the enslaved men and women who made those celebrations possible. The house will display original porcelain from its collection, lit by candlelight.
The latest tour starts at 7:00 p.m. and runs about 45 minutes, so you're out before 8:00 on a Friday or Saturday night. That leaves the rest of the evening open.
After Thanksgiving, the season has more events. From Thursday, December 3 through Sunday, December 6, four of them fall within four days.
Charleston Stage's A Christmas Carol at the Historic Dock Street Theatre opens the Sunday before, November 29, so it's already running that week. For anyone who wants a full first weekend of December, the shopping bazaar, the Saturday morning event, the parade and a Dock Street performance all fit within those four days.
The second week of December is quieter, with a couple of evening events and one matinee.
On Tuesday, December 8, from 6:00 to 7:15 p.m., the Library Society hosts A Christmas Carol with the Travelling Literary Theater. That makes two productions of the same Dickens story this season. The Library Society's is a single 75-minute weeknight performance. The Dock Street production runs for most of a month.
The Charleston Symphony's Holiday Strings program comes to the Library Society the following weekend, Friday, December 11 at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday, December 12 at 1:00 and 7:00 p.m. The Saturday 1:00 p.m. show is the season's only afternoon concert here. Saturday visitors can make a full day of it, with the matinee early on and the Battery afterward.
Dock Street runs A Christmas Carol through Sunday, December 20, the last ticketed date on this calendar. Charleston Stage's show page has performance times and ticket details.
| Dates | Event | Where | Ticket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov. 20 and 21 | Holiday candlelight tours | Nathaniel Russell House | $45, required |
| Nov. 29 through Dec. 20 | A Christmas Carol, Charleston Stage | Historic Dock Street Theatre | See Charleston Stage |
| Dec. 3 and 4 | Holiday Shopping Bazaar in the Stacks | Charleston Library Society | See Library Society |
| Dec. 5 | Sugar in the Stacks | Charleston Library Society | Ticketed |
| Dec. 6, 3 p.m. | City of Charleston Holiday Parade | City route | See City of Charleston |
| Dec. 8 | A Christmas Carol, Travelling Literary Theater | Charleston Library Society | Ticketed |
| Dec. 11 and 12 | Holiday Strings, Charleston Symphony | Charleston Library Society | See Charleston Symphony |
| Throughout the season | The rebuilt Low Battery promenade | Murray Boulevard | None |
Laid out by date, the season opens with its tightest event, gets busiest in the first week of December, and wraps up with a theater run that ends five days before Christmas.
Every ticketed event above has a fixed time. The Battery doesn't. You can walk the 12-foot promenade before a 5:30 tour at the Nathaniel Russell House, after a Saturday matinee at the Library Society, or on an evening with nothing booked at all.
The City's improvements also make the walk easier to fit around an evening out. On-street parking along the corridor, safer crossings and better ADA access are all part of the finished project. This season the finished seawall connects the neighborhood's holiday evenings, and the only date to book early is a candlelight tour on November 20 or 21.
If you're hosting this season and want to show guests the rebuilt Battery and the historic houses behind it, Anna and the team at Anna Gruenloh are glad to share what they know about South of Broad's streets and the stories behind its addresses. Let's connect.
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