Rock Hill’s annual Christmasville celebration, a four-day festival of all things Yuletide, is a rollicking winter wonderland. It’s filled with children’s games, ice-skating, holiday singalongs, magic shows, Christmas gnomes, and even performing dogs in the form of Johnny Peers and the Muttville Comix. But the event also is a great chance to get to experience some of the great art, crafts, culture and music that Rock Hill has to offer.

Stop by the Art Market in the Palmetto Ballroom and you might just find yourself done with your Christmas shopping before you know it. Artists and artisans will be on hand with handmade gifts galore. Even better, during the festival several artists in town will be holding Open Studios, giving you the chance to peek inside and not only look at their work, but talk to them about it as well.

Nearby Winthrop University has a tremendous art department, and Christmasville provides a great opportunity not only to see the work that goes on there but to have the chance to bring some of it home.

For the 22nd year, Winthrop will host its Holiday Pottery Sale featuring the work of faculty master potters and their students. Gallery Up also will be hosting its 6th annual Silent Auction, where you can bid on one-of-a-kind artwork, including photography, paintings, sculpture, jewelry and more, by Winthrop University art students, faculty and alumni. Items will be in a large range of prices, so there should be something for everybody.

Winthrop’s performing arts departments also will shine this Christmas. Senior dance majors will present a varied program of original choreography and the Department of Music will offer An Evening of Opera.

Holiday music is a huge part of Christmasville and there is always a melody drifting through the air from the Village Square Stage and the Old Town Amphitheater, with almost continual programming throughout the days of the festival. Dickensian carolers, the Deck the Hall Holiday Concert, and a Service of Lessons and Carols round out the program.

Visiting Christmasville is also a great time for learning more about the history of Rock Hill. Tour guide John T. Misskeley will lead a one hour tour of the cozy downtown on Saturday, Dec. 3 at 11 a.m., and the historic White Home, all decorated in holiday greenery, will open its doors for tours on Dec. 3-4 from 3 to 7 p.m.

It makes sense that this Christmas festival would have such an emphasis on the arts since it was the brainchild of artist Vernon Grant, the creator of the whimsical “Snap,” “Crackle” and “Pop” characters. Grant, who retired to Rock Hill, also loved drawing Santa Claus. Perhaps the highlight of Christmasville is the exhibit of over fifty of his whimsical portraits of jolly old St. Nick.

Christmasville will take place from Dec. 1-4 in Rock Hill. Click here for more information and a full schedule of the days’ events.