CALENDAR, Jan. 4+: Play day, inaugural events, more

(NEW) Free play day: 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Jan. 8, Children’s Museum of the Lowcountry, 25 Ann St., Charleston. Thanks to a grant from the PNC Foundation, the museum will be free to Lowcountry families as part of a series of free days to enhance child development. More: ExploreCML.org.

Tecklenburg inaugural events: Mayor-elect John Tecklenburg has several events lined up for next week’s transfer of mayoral power. More.

• Family Day: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Jan. 9, 2016, Hampton Park, Charleston, S.C. The free event is designed to engage citizens with live music and fun activities. Food trucks will be on site. More.
• Swearing-in ceremony: Noon to 2 p.m., Jan. 11, 2016, City Hall, 80 Broad Street, Charleston. A pre-program begins at 11 a.m. with a second-line parade at 11:45 a.m. A reception in Washington Square follows. More.
• Inaugural concert and reception: 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., Jan. 11, 2016, Gaillard Center, 95 Calhoun Street, Charleston. An hour-long concert featuring spirituals and classic music will be followed by a general reception in the hall’s grand ballroom. Tickets are $25. More.

(NEW) Make a sweetgrass basket: 9:30 a.m., Jan. 15, The Charleston Museum, 360 Meeting St. Charleston. You can learn to make a sweetgrass basket in this four-hour class. Cost: $60 for non-members; $45 for members. More.

(NEW) Lowcountry Oyster Festival: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Jan. 31, Boone Hall Plantation, Mount Pleasant. One of the top 20 events in the Southeast, this gathering is the world’s largest oyster festival and features shucking and eating contests as well as live music, craft beers and more. Tickets are $25 on the day of the event, $17.50 in advance. Proceeds benefit charities. Rain or shine. More.

Sandberg to Hot Stove speaker:  6 p.m., Jan. 22, Charleston Marriott ballroom, Charleston. be here Jan. 22. Ryne Sandberg, one of baseball’s legendary second basemen, will speak at the Hot Stove Banquet to help keep baseball alive in the off-season and to raise money for charity, including local college baseball programs. Tickets are $70 per person. More

Special January library program. Charleston County Public Library branches in January will offer a variety of programs around the work of Marian Wright Edelman, the South Carolina author and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. She’ll visit Charleston on March 1 to give a free public lecture at the Sottille Theatre. But before the visit, the library will feature programs for children, storytimes around her book, I Can Make Difference, and discussions about another book, The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children. Program events reportedly are available through the library’s website, but they’re hard to find.

Museum Mile Month is here. For the cost of one $25 ticket throughout January 2016, adults can enjoy visits to 11 attractions along Charleston’s Museum Mile. These include the Aiken-Rhett House Museum, Charleston Museum, Nathaniel Russell House and Museum and The Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon. More: CharlestonsMuseumMile.org.

Bird walks: 8:30 a.m. to noon, every Wednesday and Saturday. This is the time of year that a great variety of migrating birds fly through the Lowcountry so what better time to take part in one of the regular early morning bird walks at Caw Caw Interpretive Center in Ravenel. Pre-registration is suggested. Cost is $10. Walks also are conducted on James Island and Folly Beach. Learn more online.

If you have an event to list on our calendar, please send it to editor@charlestoncurrents.com for consideration.  The calendar is updated weekly on Mondays.