Castle Geekland

Yes! Boston has a Christmas Tree! The tree is donated every year by Halifax in thanks for Boston’s aid after the Halifax explosion and as a symbol of the friendship between the two cities. I grew up in the suburbs and never went to the tree lighting in the city, but google tells me it’s on Boston Common. (My town did a “blue tree” lighting every year instead of a Christmas tree, so I was immediately like, ah yes! The blue tree! Wait that’s just Needham.)

I don’t know about Christmas market but if you want kitschy street market, year round that’s Quincy Market. If you want clam chowder or a stuffed toy lobster, that’s your place. Though Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market are definitely tourist places that I poo-poo’ed as a local.

The thing about Boston is—it’s small. It’s a town that thinks it’s a city. Everything is walking distance. The T stops are in places within sight of each other. But it’s a small town with a big city ego, and big city culture (in terms of sports teams, museums, symphony, theater, etc.) It’s also a city with so many colleges and universities that every other person living there is a student (or that’s what it feels like). Lifelong Bostonians live in the burbs and commute in. And you can live in my hometown and have a half hour bike commute to downtown. So the central places of Boston are all right next to each other—Boston Public Garden, the Boston Common, Copley Plaza, Quincy Market, these are all right next to each other.

For Christmas things, I can think of two biggies: the Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker (omg SUCH a big deal for all us ballet girls) and Christmas at the Pops with the Boston Pops. I’ve been to that in a snowstorm (I went to northeastern for grad school and lived two blocks from symphony hall so went as often as possible) and it is the most fun. Do you want an orchestra in Santa hats and reindeer antlers playing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, that’s your place.

When I was a student, I sang with the choir at Trinity Church on Copley, and they did a Lessons and Carols service that would pack the church. There were people waiting for hours in a snowstorm to make sure they got in—they were there when I arrived for rehearsal. So that’s also a thing.

(Also, if you want to throw in a Boston deep cut, the Church of Christian Scientist Mother Church is there and it has two very cool features—the largest pipe organ in the world, and the Mapparium. The Mapparium is awesome.)

Was just gut checking with my wife who grew up in Manchester and said “I’m the wrong person to ask—I hate Boston” (spoken like a true New Hampshire-ite) “and also Christmas in Boston has Boston weather.” And now she’s cringing at me writing New Hampshire-ite.

My wife has chimed in with another Boston deep cut—the ether dome, in Mass General. The location of the first surgery with anesthesia. At least pre COVID, you could just walk in there as a member of the public. It’s very cool.

Okay, you've now activated my Boston love, so I just have to make sure you've heard of a few other Boston things. Boston's small enough that events take over the city in a way they don't in NYC (where I now live). Like, it's hard to express just how unignorable some of this is:
- Fenway being in the middle of the city means game day takes over EVERYTHING
- Are you aware of Patriot's Day? It's a Massachusetts state holiday to commemorate the start of the Revolution.
- Boston Marathon is a big deal, especially since the bombing in 2013.
- The Head of the Charles Regatta. Just google that one. You can't get a hotel in the entire Boston area that weekend.
- Also, the Freedom Trail is a thing, but mostly for school groups and tourists. It's a path that connects the major Revolution-era sites, and ends at the Bunker Hill monument (which, famously, is on Breed's Hill). I can't see two adults going on this unless they were trying to prove something to each other by walking the whole thing then climbing the monument (there are stairs inside).
- There are duck boats and swan boats. They are different, and they are both for kids and tourists.

Also, be aware that "Boston proper" is different than what most people think of when they think of the city of Boston. Like--NYC is one city with five boroughs. Boston didn't incorporate like that. Cambridge and Brookline are separate cities. Boston proper is a weird shape that sort of stretches around Brookline. Cambridge and Brookline people get huffy when people call them Boston.