Southern Summer

It’s strange to spend your December at the beach, lying out in the sun, swimming in the ocean. Not that I’m complaining mind you, but every now and then I did find myself thinking, is it really still December? What if I’ve fallen into some strange time warp and it’s actually April? These kinds of things can happen in beach towns.

If you popped me in a time machine, set it to random, and pulled me out here I would say it’s late March, early April. Or I’d say we were Mexico again. Then again, it’s not the first time we’ve had a December warm enough for the beach, and with any luck it won’t be the last.

We took full advantage of it, ignoring everyday tasks like laundry in favor of living in bathing suits.

Mornings and evenings were still cool, but that made them perfect times for a little marsh walking. You can’t play at the beach all day. Actually, our kids probably could, but variety is good.

We’ve always made a trip to Charleston from Edisto, usually to do laundry, but this year we skipped that headed straight out to Battery Park for a picnic.

Last year, part of what I did while we were holed up at the farmhouse, was to write a historical novel. I wrote it mostly for the kids, about some kids living in the early 18th century. Some of the action, or I guess you would say the climatic scenes, are set in 1710 Charleston (then called Charlestown). It was fun to show them some of the places things happened in the book, in real life. I enjoy overlaying the world in front of us with a good story.

In the end though, I think the kids were mostly excited about ice cream. History is fascinating, but ice cream is delicious. We’ve been coming to Charleston and getting ice cream at the same place downtown for years now. It’s a family tradition at this point.

I’d have to say coming to Edisto Beach and Charleston for the holidays is something of a tradition now too. I’m not sure it’s one we’ll do every year, but it works for now.