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Cutty’s
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Aeronaut Brewing Company
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Guides
Boston has 6 Nutcrackers this season, and one is in French
The Nutcracker that Boston knows by heart owes its gentle story to France. As the French Library explains, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale was dark and complicated, and Alexandre Dumas, the author of The Three Musketeers, retold it in 1844 as the fairy tale that became Tchaikovsky’s ballet in St. Petersburg in 1892. This December that story shows up all over Greater Boston in six very different versions. One is a full classical ballet with a live orchestra, one moves the party to present-day downtown Boston, one is narrated in French for kids, one swings to Duke Ellington, and one comes to town for a single night with acrobats and giant puppets. Here’s when and where each one plays, what tickets cost where the venue lists a price, and which ones are made for kids. The big one runs Friday, Nov. 27 through Thursday, Dec. 31 at the Citizens Opera House. Mikko Nissinen’s production premiered in 2012 with hand-painted sets and more than 350 costumes made in Massachusetts and designed by Robert Perdziola. The Boston Ballet Orchestra plays Tchaikovsky’s score at every performance, and 83 students from Boston Ballet School dance alongside the company. Plan on about two hours with one intermission, and dress in layers, because the company keeps the theater warmer than usual for the dancers. Boston Ballet says it is the only official seller of tickets, so buy from its site. Groups of 10 or more can save up to 35%, and there is a sensory friendly performance designed for neurodiverse guests and anyone with sensory sensitivities. José Mateo Ballet Theatre brings its 38th annual Nutcracker to the Strand Theatre from Saturday, Dec. 5 through Sunday, Dec. 20. More than 100 kids ages 6 to 18 dance with professional guest artists every year, and Boston Magazine named it Best Family-Friendly Show in Best of Boston 2020. Mateo choreographed this version to Tchaikovsky’s score in 1988, and the company bills it as affordable. Anthony Williams’ Urban Nutcracker sets its winter scenes in present-day downtown Boston and blends Duke Ellington with Tchaikovsky. Classical ballet is the base, with tap, hip hop, flamenco and jazz mixed in. It plays the Boch Center’s Shubert Theatre from Saturday, Dec. 12 through Sunday, Dec. 20, with 10 performances including weekend matinees, and tickets start at $29 at the box office. The touring Nutcracker! production is in town for exactly one show, Friday, Dec. 11 at 7 PM at the Boch Center’s Wang Theatre. Now on its 33rd annual tour, it adds acrobatics and larger-than-life puppets to the ballet. Tickets start at $66 at the box office. On Wednesday, Dec. 9, the Arpeggione Ensemble plays a miniature Nutcracker at the French Library on Marlborough Street. Thomas Carroll’s arrangement fits Tchaikovsky’s full orchestral score into five musicians playing many more than five instruments, with narration in French from Dumas’s version, English subtitles and projected illustrations, so kids can follow along even if they don’t speak a word of French. Doors open at 5:30 PM for a holiday craft atelier for kids and families, the concert starts at 6 PM, and light refreshments follow. Tickets are $30, or $24 for members and French Library students, and kids under 14 get in at no charge with an adult. Berklee’s Holiday Spectacular on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 8 PM is a two-part night at the Berklee Performance Center on Massachusetts Avenue. The Gen-Next All-Stars open with arrangements of holiday songs, then the Diamond Cut Big Band plays Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite, his big band take on Tchaikovsky’s music. The box office at 136 Massachusetts Ave. is open noon to 6 PM Tuesday through Friday, plus two hours before the show.
Boston’s Hanukkah 2026 has menorahs on Hummer limos and a deli that will fry 50 latkes in your kitchen
Hanukkah 2026 begins at sundown on Fri, Dec 4 and ends at nightfall on Sat, Dec 12, according to Hebcal. Because it starts on a Friday, the first candles go up early, at 3:53 PM in Boston, per The Boston Report. That’s eight nights and two weekends of latkes, jelly doughnuts and candle lightings. The MFA gives Hanukkah a whole Sunday, Shaloh House in Brighton puts menorahs on the roofs of Hummer limos, and the Vilna Shul pairs an a cappella concert with homemade sufganiyot. Here’s what’s on, when, and where to get your latkes. The Boston Report lists these times: 3:53 PM on Fri, Dec 4, 4:58 PM on Sat, Dec 5, 4:36 PM every night from Sun, Dec 6 through Thu, Dec 10, and 3:53 PM again on Fri, Dec 11. The MFA gives Hanukkah a whole Sunday, from 10 AM to 5 PM on Sun, Dec 6, with the Vilna Shul and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. It’s included with general admission, visitors 18 and under get in at no charge, and the community candle lighting is at 3:30 PM. Register through the Vilna Shul and it sends ticket codes ahead of time. The MFA garage is $20 for non-members. Shaloh House in Brighton throws a Chanukah Kids Party from 1 to 3 PM for $5 per child, with latke making, doughnut decorating, a LEGO menorah contest and a gelt drop. Later that day, Temple Beth Zion at 1566 Beacon St. in Brookline hosts a third-night party from 4 to 6 PM with latkes, sufganiyot and a community hanukkiah lighting. Bring your own hanukkiah and four candles, plus a donation for the food pantry. The Grand Chanukah Hummer Parade starts at Shaloh House, 29 Chestnut Hill Ave., with a reception at 5 PM, a public menorah lighting at 5:30 and the car parade from 6 to 7. Kids can ride in Hummer limos with menorahs on the roof if you reserve a seat, and drivers who show up by 4:30 PM can get a menorah mounted on their own car. Sign up at shaloh.org/hummer. The Vilna Shul at 18 Phillips St. on Beacon Hill holds its annual Hanukkah a cappella concert from 7 to 9 PM on Wed, Dec 9, and tickets are $25. BerKalit headlines, Gann Academy’s ShenaniGanns open, and SlapShtick’s Ari Goldberg hosts. Doors open at 6:30 PM so you can see the exhibit American Chutzpah, the concert and candle lighting start at 7, and Israeli-style homemade sufganiyot come out at 8:15. Mamaleh’s sells Hot Potato Latkes, three to an order with sour cream and applesauce, for $9.50, and the recipe is gluten-friendly. It has delis at 15 Hampshire St. in Kendall Square and 1659 Beacon St. in Brookline. Hosting? The Latke Party for 8 is $2,000, and the Mamaleh’s team comes to your kitchen, fries 50 latkes and brings the applesauce and sour cream. You need to be within 15 miles of Boston. For a smaller night at home, the $99.50 Deli Classics for the Whole Family package includes six frozen latkes along with matzah ball soup, noodle kugel, knishes, bagels and rugelach. Zaftigs at 335 Harvard St. serves potato pancakes with applesauce and sour cream for $14, and Loaded Latkes, two stacked pancakes with your choice of toppings. The Latke Piccata is $22, and the Empire Eggs put two poached eggs, spinach and smoked salmon on potato pancakes with Hollandaise for $21. Lehrhaus at 425 Washington St. is KVH-certified dairy kosher. It’s open Sunday through Thursday from 4:30 to 9:30 PM and closed Friday and Saturday, so plan it for a night between Sun, Dec 6 and Thu, Dec 10. Walk-ins are welcome, and reservations go up to eight people.
Get to know Boston
Bostonians are generous and loyal but it goes both ways
Outsiders might read the generosity as a performance on the way in and coldness on the way out. Wrong. It’s an account. Reciprocity is expected in this town. When you skip your turn you say something about you. The first round The bar is the easiest place to see this. Someone raised here, especially in the neighborhoods, will fight to get the first round. We will argue for the privilege because that’s how we show we like you, but if you don’t buy one back, it’s an insult. What, so you don’t like me? Or worse, you’re a cheap motherfucker. Most of us won’t say that, although some will say the last part, joking/not-joking. Either way, you’re on the outs. Irish pub culture has the same rule written more tightly. The Irish Times describes the round as a system, not an act of generosity. Mess it up and you can damage a reputation or a friendship. Irish Central is blunter: nobody reminds you when it is your turn, and people will talk. Bostonians are the same way with conversation. Only talk about yourself, never ask a question, and show no interest in the other person, and it’s over. We also have strict rules about family and friends. For neighborhood Bostonians, family is always right and the people we have known since kindergarten are family. In the schoolyard we backed them no matter what, and we still do. New friends are judged the same. Pass and you have a friend for life. Galway House is one of the oldest Irish bars in Boston. Photo by 4300streetcar Parish, neighborhood, round This culture is thickest in Irish Catholic working-class neighborhoods of Boston like Jamaica Plain, South Boston, Roslindale, and Dorchester, or JP, Southie, Rozzie, and Dot. People who leave those places tend to take the culture with them, and new people notice even if they can’t name what they are noticing. None of this came from nowhere. Rural Ireland ran on neighbor labor as well as kinship. A meitheal was a working party. Neighbors helped with a harvest or a turf cut, then expected the same help when their own work came due. The Irish Independent describes it as neighbors helping each other in turn, with no wages, on farms of roughly equal size so nobody cleaned up at everyone else’s expense. That is not a romantic clan from a movie. It is a practical rule: you show up, then they show up. Boston gave that rule a parish and a street. Irish Catholic immigrants built churches against real hostility. In Dorchester, a church under construction in Lower Mills burned in 1854, a fire many believed was set by Know-Nothings. St. Gregory’s followed. Later, people from the neighborhood still asked what parish you were from, because the parish was the map. Global Boston notes that Irish Americans left more slowly than some other groups in part because Catholic parishes could not pick up and follow them to the suburbs the way a synagogue could. A study of South Boston’s Irish enclave, drawing on Thomas O’Connor and on residents, put it in plainer language. People identified themselves by parish as much as by Irish county. In South Boston you learned silence and loyalty. Those are not opposite traits. They are the same system seen from two sides. You take care of your own. You do not advertise the terms. Call it clan if you want. The useful word is still the round. Help is supposed to come back and loyalty is supposed to be answered. Conversation is supposed to have a return. People who grew up in it think it’s normal, but people who didn’t think we’re a harsh bunch. They don’t realize our generosity is not charity, it’s membership. If you want in, buy the next drink, ask a question, and show up when it is your turn. If you don’t, you just won’t be asked back.
The famous Boston accent and its obsession with the letter R
Say “car,” then say “car engine.” For someone with a traditional Boston accent, the R can disappear in the first version and return in the second. The next sound makes a difference. That detail gets lost in plenty of Boston impressions. Removing every R gets you only so far, and eventually gets you somewhere nobody here is from. The accent has patterns involving consonants, vowels, and the way words meet in a sentence. It also varies considerably among the people who use it. Which R’s does the Boston accent drop? Linguists call the traditional accent non-rhotic. In ordinary terms, speakers often leave out an R after a vowel when another consonant or a pause follows. Think of “park,” “card,” or “car” said on its own. The R at the beginning of “red” stays. So does the one in “bring.” A Boston speaker is not applying a blanket ban to the letter. An R can also return at the end of a word when the next word starts with a vowel sound. In “car engine,” the words connect through the R. This is called linking R, a pattern also found in other non-rhotic English accents. Try saying the phrases naturally rather than giving each word its own pause. The difference is easier to hear in a sentence than in a list of words written with “ah” at the end. And where do the extra R’s come from? Then there is intrusive R: an R sound between words where no R appears in the spelling. “The idea of it” can sound like “the idear of it.” The vowel at the beginning of “of” creates the setting for that extra sound. It does not mean every Boston speaker says “idear” whenever the word appears. The University of York’s explanation of linking and intrusive R describes how one pattern developed from the other. Speakers extended an existing way of joining vowel sounds to words that did not have a written R. The extra consonant helps two vowel sounds meet. It follows a pattern, rather than arriving wherever an actor decides to put it. The vowels matter, too Listen to “cot” and “caught.” For many traditional Boston speakers, those words sound alike. That shared vowel is another important part of the accent, although it receives considerably less attention than “pahk.” Some speakers also use a broad A in words such as “bath” or “half,” bringing the vowel closer to the one in “father.” These features are not a checklist every Bostonian completes. A person can have a recognizable local accent without using all of them. You can hear examples in WBUR’s recordings and explanation of Boston speech, which includes Dartmouth linguist James Stanford discussing the sounds. Listening is more useful than trying to reconstruct an accent from exaggerated spelling. How Boston came to sound this way Boston speech belongs to the broader Eastern New England dialect region. Its history includes the English spoken by early settlers and the region’s continuing connections with England. Boston University linguist Neil Myler points to settlers from East Anglia as an important influence on the region’s R-dropping speech. Stanford also emphasizes the close contact Boston maintained with southeastern England, where non-rhotic pronunciation gained social prestige. That history helps explain the connection, but the accent has continued changing here. The way someone speaks also reflects their family, community, education, and social surroundings. Four centuries of Boston life did not leave the original dialect untouched. “Wicked” and “frappe” are a different part of the story An accent concerns pronunciation. A dialect includes vocabulary and grammar as well. “Wicked,” used to mean very or extremely, is vocabulary. In “wicked cold,” it increases the force of “cold.” It does the same job in “wicked expensive,” with less pleasant financial implications. “Frappe” is another regional word, pronounced “frap” in the familiar local usage. Merriam-Webster records both that pronunciation and the thick-milkshake meaning. Someone can order a frappe, complain that it is wicked expensive, and pronounce every R. Knowing the words and having the accent are separate things. Not everyone raised here sounds the same Research has documented differences across age groups and communities. In a 2010 study of Boston and two New Hampshire towns, linguists Naomi Nagy and Patricia Irwin found that younger speakers pronounced more post-vocalic R’s than older speakers. Education and other social factors also mattered. Those results concern the people in the study, rather than every younger person in Boston. They also measure one feature: someone who pronounces more R’s can retain other local sounds. The accent does not disappear the moment one pronunciation changes. For some people, sounding local is a source of pride. Others have felt pressure to soften their pronunciation to avoid being judged. Both experiences help explain why a city can have such a recognizable accent without all its residents sharing it. Pronouncing the R in “Dorchester” does not cancel out having grown up there.