Why Spend your Christmas Holiday in Savannah?
Laid out in 1733 by British founder James Oglethorpe, this exquisite Southern city excels in elegant Georgian- and Regency-style homes clustered around 22 squares enhanced by 300-year-old live oaks draped with Spanish moss. It also has a picturesque riverfront location only 15 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
Savannah also celebrates a special Christmas anniversary this year – on December 22 a century-and-a-half ago, after invading and burning much of Georgia, Union General William T Sherman decided the city was too magnificent to burn and sent the following telegram to President Abraham Lincoln, his commander-in-chief: “I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah, with 150 guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”
Seasonal Treats in Savannah
This Southern belle not only dresses up for the holidays with scarlet bows tied to traditional Victorian lampposts and flamboyant wreaths tied to front doors but also opens some of its historic homes for special tours. At the Davenport House, the dining table is set for Christmas lunch à la 1827 – with roast turkey, Virginia ham, oysters, yams and pound cake. In the Juliette Gordon Low House, you can follow costumed guides through the gas-lit rooms and learn about the founder of America’s Girl Scout movement, who was born there. And, in the Mercer Williams House, the setting for the blockbuster 1990s book and later film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, you can learn interesting information about the local scene.
Christmas carollers visit a
Savannah mansion
Savannah also has a rich musical heritage. Its most famous son, songwriter extraordinaire Johnny Mercer (one-time resident of the Mercer Williams House), produced such hits as Baby, It’s Cold Outside and Moon River, and local organist James Pierpont left us Jingle Bells, a Christmas favourite – though it’s hard to imagine a ‘One Horse Open Sleigh’ in balmy Georgia. At the 200-year-old Savannah Theatre, the oldest in America, the audience stomps its feet to Christmas in Dixie, one of a cavalcade of songs at its annual ‘Christmas Tradition’ show. Afterwards, you can drop by the century-old Leopold’s Ice Cream parlour for a Sugar Plum Fairy cone.
For Christmas shopping, Bull and Whitaker Streets are great hunting grounds, with antiques rubbing shoulders with designer fashion and one-of-a-kind gifts. Don’t miss shopSCAD (340 Bull Street), with unique creations by professors and students at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Where to stay in Savannah
The 19th-century Azalea Inn has ten elegantly-furnished bedrooms and fulsome breakfasts. Alternatively, rent a Savannah Dream Vacations home in the historic district.
Dinning out in Savannah
Mrs Wilkes Dining Room is renowned for serving dish after dish of home cooking, from fried chicken and grits to peach cobbler. Combining tradition with a modern twist is the handsome, wood-panelled Olde Pink House, and, for a trendy alternative, there’s the Soho South Cafe, a former garage offering such delicacies as jumbo lump crab cakes with crawfish succotash.
Getting to Savannah from the UK
Delta flies from Heathrow and Manchester direct to Atlanta, offering air connections to Savannah and rental cars (Savannah is 252 miles to the south-east).
