There are towns that do Christmas, and there are towns that are Christmas, and for a few weeks every December historic downtown Hartsville leans hard into the second kind. Carolina Avenue strings up its lights, the shops along Mantissa Row stay open late, and Heart of the Holidays brings the Art & Wine Walk to the Cultural District.
Stay at the Mantissa and the whole thing is on foot: dinner at Sam Kendall’s, a warm drink up on The Rooftop, gift-shopping on Mantissa Row, and a full-kitchen suite to come home to. It is the small-town Southern Christmas the cards are based on — minus the crowds.