James Island Travel Guide

Favorite thing: Each year various corporations and businesses in the Charleston area sponsor a Christmas light display on James Island. You pay about $10 for a car full of people and drive through the static and animated displays ranging from an elf running from an alligator to a horse jumping a fence to dolphins leaping in a (real) lake.

Fondest memory: If one parks, there are also craft and novelty shops, and a roasting marshmellow area, and sweets shops. There is a Santa for the children to go and sit on his lap, and the people running the line interview the parents and feed the information to Santa so he appears omnipotent. It starts right after Thanksgiving.

This is not a place to go if you haven't had dinner because the only real food is chili dogs.