The Friday evening event at Middleton Place near Charleston commemorates Christmas.
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- History and the holidays combine on the South Carolina coast as a coastal plantation stages what it calls the Grand Illumination.
The Friday evening event at Middleton Place near Charleston commemorates Christmas 1782, recreating the holiday season after the British evacuated Charleston at the end of the Revolutionary War.
The gardens on the Ashley River will be lit with both torchlight and candlelight and interpreters in period dress will describe that holiday.
The house at Middleton is decorated for the season and there will be a fire, live music and refreshments on the greensward in the back of the house.
Construction of Middleton Place started in 1741 by Henry Middleton, president of the First Continental Congress.
Middleton Place: www.middletonplace.org/default.asp
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