My sister and family live in Sumter, South Carolina. For Christmas this year, we all gathered there to celebrate the holiday and have a good visit with each other. When I arrived on Friday I was greeted with a light show.
My sister and brother-in-law have made the local culture magazine and video blog for their christmas light show timed to music. People idle in their cars outside of the house to watch the 34 minute, 6 song, synchronized lights dance to the music. They have a sign instructing folks to tune in to the channel to listen along.
Its officially a thing. I opened the front door last night and there was a line of cars parked in front of the house idling and watching the light show. I closed the door quickly, feeling creepy for interrupting their stare at my sister's house.
In my previous visits to Sumter – I never actually had the pleasure of seeing the actual town, the Walmart, but never the town. So on our first day my folks and I decided to go exploring and take niece Kira out to Old McCaskill's Farm and bring back some farm fresh Christmas dinner.
We journeyed over the river, through the woods, past the cotton, and through the gate to the farm. To find a certified South Carolina agrotourism site.
We were greeted by the local dogs and the proprietor, encouraging us to solve the riddle and engage in the interpretive experience of the farm.
As we were with an 8 year old, and love farms, we did.
The riddle was "What farm animal tells the best jokes?"
Can you guess the answer? We sure couldn't, so we made our way around the farm to ask all the animals and learn various factoids in the process. Like did you know that rabbits run up to 50 miles per hour? And that pigs dream? You do now.
On our journey around the farm we stopped at the garden, then we visited the pigs, and the chickens
the rabbits and the barnyard. This pig above was sucking on the pipe like a bottle. I hope it was giving him water in return.
We figured out the answer to the riddle was "comidi-hens" and laughed about how we were trying to spell a real word. We pet the cow and the sheep and laughed at the pot bellied pig getting head butted by the goat. The sheep and the calf wanted to follow us home because we gave the scritches and pets.
After fully exploring the barnyard sites and smells we went into the store and purchased leg of lamb and a whole duck for Christmas eve dinner along with some goat ribs just because I was curious about what they might be like. We were very certain that my sister might wrinkle her nose at all of our choices, but since we were the ones purchasing small farm fresh, organic and humanly raised meat we rolling with it.
Then the baby goats showed up. 
They were only 3 days old.
And still soft, cuddly and cried like little human babies with a goat voices.
Kira and I couldn't manage to look at the camera at the same time, but we both got to hold them for a while.
Having explored everything the farm had to offer and befriending the local cat we made our way into Sumter so I could see what was there. The new historic district had some great fountains and sidewalks, although the actual stores are yet to come. Economic revitalization is a process after all.
