It is a generally acknowledged truth of the season that holiday entertainment often relies on a surplus of goodwill to mask a deficit of swing. Not so in Pelzer, where the Mill Town Players have mounted “A Cool Yule Classic Christmas Concert”—a production that discards the usual charitable grading curve and delivers instead a genuinely fabulous fa-la-la-la-la of a show. 

Anderson County Council on Tuesday approved tax incentives for two major industrial projects expected to bring more than 270 new jobs and more than $22 million in combined investment to the area, underscoring a year of steady economic momentum for the county.

The larger of the two projects involves a European food processing company, well established across the continent but new to the American market. The company, which has not yet been publicly named, plans to invest $13.4 million in a food service facility in Anderson County and create 202 jobs with an average wage of $22.03 an hour.

It’s Giving Tuesday, and the heart of Anderson beats with quiet generosity, a rhythm sustained by the tireless work of local organizations that offer hope, sustenance, and dignity to those in need. From the warm steam rising off weekday lunches at the Anderson Emergency Soup Kitchen to the compassionate outreach of the Cancer Association of Anderson, these groups are the backbone of a community that cares deeply for its own.

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church brings a time-honored tradition back to Clemson this weekend with its 82nd Annual Bazaar and Artisan Market. The event is scheduled for Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the church’s fellowship hall at 193 Old Greenville Highway, directly across from Clemson University.

The ceremony itself was modest—an oath repeated, a Bible held steady by outgoing Mayor Frank Crenshaw, a confident voice of someone who had spent weeks knocking on doors and now found all those living-room conversations distilled into a single, public moment.

On the agenda is a proposed package of tax incentives for a company promising 202 new jobs and a $13.8 million investment—numbers that, translated into local terms, mean shifts on factory floors, short commutes and, perhaps, a new line on the family budget for the first time in a while.

By late afternoon on Sunday, Williamston quietly remade itself into a Winter Wonderland, the kind of one-day spectacle that small towns are able to pull off while larger cities spend years trying to re-create. The area from town hall to Mineral Springs Park filled with families in winter coats carrying umbrellas, drifting toward the center of town for a compact, carefully arranged celebration that condensed an entire season’s worth of ritual into a single, glittering day.

None of the ten largest nonprofits in Anderson County now receive more than three percent of their annual budgets from churches, a quiet statistical shrug in a place where nearly every fundraiser still begins with an invocation. The lone exception, The Lot Project—a scrappy ministry on West Market Street —manages to draw a little more than eight percent of its support from congregations, making it, by local standards, practically old-fashioned.

The Holiday Market will be open each Saturday through Dec 20 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The market features more than 50 local vendors offering handmade, homemade and locally grown products, as well as live music.

Pendleton’s annual Christmas Tree Lighting and Christkindlmarkt unfolded this weekend with the glow of tradition and small-town camaraderie, transforming the village green into a festive centerpiece as twilight settled in. It marks the first year under the care of Pendleton’s own community leadership, building on the legacy of local organizers and welcoming the season with the gentlest echo of holiday music and laughter that carries across downtown.

Research suggests that a modest shift in behavior—redirecting even a slice of holiday spending toward local independents—can have outsized effects, magnifying each dollar two to four times over as it moves from hand to hand in the community.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, time to deck the halls, haul out the holly and get a sneak peek at a to lighted county Christmas tree downtown (which now tops 57 feet). Belton and Honea Path have already held tree-lighting events, and more county and civic celebrations of the holidays are set, with Christmas parades, tree lightings and other events in the days ahead.

Researchers have tracked participants who kept simple gratitude lists for a year and found not only shifts in mood but changes in relationships, as people who paused to catalogue small mercies became more patient, more generous, more inclined to interpret others’ actions charitably.

The Lot Project has begun welcoming residents who have already taken their first steps out of crisis—graduating from addiction recovery programs, completing mental health treatment, or exhausting their stays at local shelters.  Residents pay rent and sign a program agreement, then move into modest units for six to twelve months while meeting regularly with case managers.

Anderson-headquartered HMR Veterans Services operates four of South Carolina’s six nursing homes for veterans.

The company started with the Richard M. Campbell Veterans Nursing Home, located in Anderson and named for the brother of the late former Gov. Carroll Campbell: U.S. Army Sgt. Richard Campbell was killed in action in May 1968 in Vietnam.

HMR has run Campbell’s namesake home since 1998 and will continue to do so through at least February 2033, along with Veterans Victory House in Walterboro. HMR has held contracts on the Lowcountry home since 2007.

Nothing captured the year’s mood more than the $80‑plus million detention center, a project that turned incarceration into an engineering story.  Burns described watching prefabricated cells arrive like oversized appliance boxes, lifted by forklift and slid into place, each one a complete room that simply had to be tied into utilities before becoming someone’s new address.  The pace has been brisk enough that the project is running roughly a month ahead of schedule, though Burns still warns the public not to confuse visible progress with imminent occupancy; a facility that size, he notes, takes time to test and staff, even with what he dryly calls “a waiting list” that is not getting any shorter.

The Milky Way Farm in Anderson County, which has 120 dairy cows, was among the recipients and received funds that helped buy a $200,000 robotic milker.

Friday’s Playoff Games:

Westside at South Pointe

Powdersville at BHP

On Monday, AIM orchestrated its annual Thanksgiving distribution at the Civic Center, serving a thousand families with food and, one suspects, with a helping of reassurance.

Total investment for the project is $36 million, and approximately 150 workers are already employed at the facility.