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Guides
5 Boston holiday lightings in 2026, including one where Santa arrives by boat
Boston’s holiday lightings start Nov 23 and end with two on Dec 3. Two get Santa and Rudolph, one gets Santa by boat, and the big tree on the Common is a gift from Nova Scotia. Boston’s biggest Christmas tree is a thank-you note. Every year Nova Scotia sends the city a tree for the help Boston rushed north after the 1917 Halifax explosion, and this year’s tree lighting is Thursday, December 3. Before that night, the city’s Parks Department lights up a waterfront trellis, a playground ship and the newly renovated Copley Square. Here are all five, in order, with the times and what to expect at each. The season starts on the North End waterfront, where the Parks Department and the Friends of Christopher Columbus Park light the park’s 260 feet of trellis for the 24th annual trellis lighting. It runs from 5 to 6 p.m. at 110 Atlantic Avenue, next to the Marriott Long Wharf. Santa and Rudolph make an appearance, there’s live music, H.P. Hood pours eggnog, the Marriott brings hot chocolate and cookies, and Joe’s Waterfront serves clam chowder. Since it ends at 6, you have the whole evening left for dinner in the North End, a few blocks away. This one is built for kids. At 5 p.m. the Friends of Martin’s Park and the Parks Department host the fifth annual lighting of the ship at Martin’s Park, 64 Sleeper Street on the Fort Point waterfront. The park’s ship, the beach fencing around it and the pedestrian bridge get wrapped in more than 1,500 feet of blue and white tube lights, and Santa pulls up on the Harborwalk by boat with the Boston Police Harbor Unit. Berklee musicians play holiday songs, and kids can meet the Boston Park Rangers Mounted Unit, climb around a Boston Fire Department truck and make holiday crafts with a local artist. Hood and Caffè Nero bring the holiday drinks. It’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so if family is in town, bring them. Copley Square Park has been under renovation, and this year’s Copley Square Tree Lighting doubles as its grand reopening. It runs from 5 to 6 p.m. at 560 Boylston Street, with guided tours of the renovated square, arts and crafts, Santa and Rudolph, and performances by vocalist Joelle James, the Boston Children’s Chorus and the Symphonic of Emerson College. Once the tree is lit, walk across the street to the Fairmont Copley Plaza for cookies and photos with Santa at 6 p.m. This is the big one. The Boston Common Tree Lighting runs from 6 to 8 p.m. next to the Visitor Information Center at 139 Tremont Street, hosted by Mayor Michelle Wu and the Province of Nova Scotia, with Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston joining her. The tree is the province’s yearly thanks for December 6, 1917, when a munitions ship exploded in Halifax Harbor and, within 24 hours, a train full of supplies and emergency crews left Boston to help. This is the 55th year Nova Scotia has sent Boston a tree. If you want to see it before it glows, it’s due to arrive on the Common by police escort at about 11 a.m. on Tuesday, November 24. Park Street and Boylston are the closest T stops on lighting night. Don’t leave when the Common’s tree comes on. Right after, around 8 p.m., Mayor Wu walks over to the Back Bay with the Friends of the Public Garden to light the trees on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, from Arlington Street all the way to Charlesgate. Neighborhood volunteers ran this display for decades before joining forces with the Friends of the Public Garden in 2022. The walk from the Common through the Public Garden to the start of the Mall takes a few minutes, so you can catch both lightings in one night, then keep walking under the lit trees toward Mass Ave. All five are hosted by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department and held outdoors in public parks, so dress for a cold night on the water or the Common. The two Monday events and the ship lighting each run about an hour, starting at 5 p.m., which makes them easy to fit in after work. December 3 is the crowded one, so get to the Common early if you want to see the stage. The Parks Department answers questions at 617-635-4505, and every event links to its city page above if a date changes for weather.
20 Italian restaurants in Boston for your next pasta craving
Boston’s Italian restaurants can turn a pasta craving into a fairly long argument about where to go. The North End has plenty of answers, but so do South Boston, the South End and East Boston. A table of cicchetti, a bowl of lobster ravioli and a sandwich eaten on the way somewhere else all deserve a place in the discussion. These twenty choices cover different kinds of meals. Some are sit-down restaurants for a long dinner; others work for a board of cheese and salumi or a quick lunch. Start with the food and the neighborhood, then check the booking arrangements. A busy sidewalk is not a reservation system. Carmelina’s serves Sicilian comfort food with Mediterranean influences in a small Hanover Street room with an open kitchen. Pasta and seafood are central to the menu. Its reservation rules are specific: online bookings through Yelp, parties of no more than six and ninety-minute table slots. Plan the after-dinner conversation somewhere else. Giacomo’s on Hanover Street is a cash-only, walk-in restaurant, with phone arrangements listed for parties of ten or more. Its menu centers on house-made pasta, seafood and its Giacomo and Fracomo sauces. Come prepared for the actual seating process rather than arriving with a tight deadline for the next part of your night. Mamma Maria overlooks North Square and changes its regional Italian cooking with the New England seasons. It has several private dining rooms as well as its regular dinner service, making it worth considering for a meal with a particular occasion attached. Ask about the room and group arrangements directly when planning a celebration. The Salty Pig on Dartmouth Street lets you build a board from meats, cheeses and accompaniments before moving on to pasta or pizza. Its menu includes house-made charcuterie alongside products from other makers. It works for a table that wants to share a few things, then decide whether dinner needs another round of food. Bar Volpe brings southern Italian cooking to West Broadway in South Boston, with handmade pasta, vegetables and wood-fired seafood. Karen Akunowicz’s restaurant is also a pastificio, or pasta shop. You can sit down for dinner or buy pasta, sauces and ricotta to make the following night considerably easier. SRV on Columbus Avenue takes its name from the Serene Republic of Venice. The menu gives you cicchetti, fresh pasta and risotto made to order, with Italian wines and cocktails. Start with small bites before deciding on the larger dishes; a Venetian-inspired meal has more routes through it than an appetizer followed by chicken parm. Coppa is Ken Oringer’s South End enoteca, serving Italian small plates, house-made pasta, pizza and charcuterie. The Shawmut Avenue restaurant also has outdoor seating when conditions allow. It is a useful choice when one person wants pizza, another wants pasta and everyone is willing to share at least the first part of dinner. Trattoria Il Panino serves pasta and other Italian dishes around Hanover and Parmenter streets, with a covered patio among its seating options. Its website lists a separate late-night menu on Fridays and Saturdays. Check which menu applies to your arrival time if you are planning dinner after a show rather than before one. Bricco on Hanover Street combines an Italian dining room and wine bar, with pasta, seafood, meat and chops across the menu. The bar offers a different way into the evening, including cocktails and pizza. Make sure you are booking Bricco Ristorante; its nearby bakery and salumeria are separate stops with different purposes. Prezza on Fleet Street gives pasta and wood-grilled dishes equal room on the menu. Its listed options include smoked mozzarella ravioli, fish stew, grilled swordfish and steaks. That range suits a group that agrees on Italian food but does not all want a bowl of pasta. Read the current menu for seasonal preparations. Rino’s Place in East Boston serves handmade pasta and substantial red-sauce dishes, including lobster ravioli, baked pasta and chicken or veal preparations. Its menu also states that the restaurant is cash only. Bring what you need to pay before sitting down; this is a detail to settle before the check arrives. Fox & the Knife on West Broadway is Karen Akunowicz’s Italian restaurant and enoteca, with handmade pasta, antipasti, aperitivi and amaro. The bar serves the full menu and is held for walk-ins on a first-come basis. It gives a solo diner or pair another option when the reservation calendar does not cooperate. La Famiglia Giorgio’s on Salem Street is built around Roman cooking and large portions. The family-run restaurant explicitly encourages the kind of meal that leaves you with something to take home. Ask about portions as you order, particularly if the table is considering several appetizers before everyone chooses a main. Arya Trattoria on Hanover Street offers a three-course menu called Fare un Viaggio alongside its individual dishes. The whole table must participate in that option, which includes appetizers, pasta and an entrée for each person. Agree on the format before ordering; it is meant to be a shared decision rather than one person’s add-on. Lucca on Hanover Street offers Italian dinner service, with separate wine, cocktail, dessert and children’s menus. Its private dining options include a wine room and other spaces for groups. Keep it in mind when the meal involves several generations or an organized gathering, and discuss the group’s needs before choosing a room. MIDA’s South End restaurant is the Tremont Street location of chef Douglass Williams’s Italian neighborhood restaurant. Use the South End menu and booking page when making plans, since MIDA also has restaurants in East Boston, Newton and Fenway. The shared name does not mean a reservation at one will get you seated at another. Euno’s menu runs from linguine with clams to mushroom gnocchi and pappardelle with a meat sauce. Seafood and meat entrées give non-pasta eaters options too. The North End restaurant also lists nightly specials based on available produce and seafood, so ask about those before deciding the printed menu has settled everything. Terramia on Salem Street serves northern and southern Italian dishes in a small North End restaurant. Its menu includes vegan ravioli as well as seafood pasta and meat dishes. It is worth a look for a mixed group of eaters, with any allergy or strict dietary requirement discussed directly with the restaurant before booking. Ciao Roma looks onto North Square and serves Roman-inspired Italian food, including homemade pasta. Outdoor seating is a separate reservation choice, and the restaurant warns that it may not be able to move patio diners inside in bad weather. Book the setting you actually want and read the terms before choosing an outdoor table. All’Antico Vinaio is the sandwich option here, with Boston branches of the Florence-born shop. It belongs in a lunch plan or a quick meal rather than a list of formal dinner reservations. Compare the fillings at your chosen location and order for the appetite you brought; a restaurant guide can leave room for paper wrapping. For another night, our Boston restaurant guide covers meals beyond Italian food. If dinner is only the start, keep the next stop nearby: the speakeasy guide gives you a few places to continue the evening.
Get to know Boston
Boston was named after another Boston
Boston was named after Boston. The earlier one is in Lincolnshire, England, where a medieval church tower rises above a port and market town. English settlers carried the name across the Atlantic in 1630. Massachusetts made it rather more famous. The connection is well documented. Historic England describes both the borrowed name and the prominent residents who left the English town to help lead the new settlement. The longer story involves a saint, a minister who arrived after the naming, and a peninsula whose human history did not start when the English showed up. Boston was named after a port town Boston, Lincolnshire, was an important trading port long before the Massachusetts settlement existed. Its position connected the town with North Sea commerce, and its surviving warehouses, markets and church reflect that wealth. St Botolph’s Church is the building most likely to catch your eye. Its tower is known as the Boston Stump, a nickname that undersells a structure visible across the flat surrounding country. The church supplied a religious and civic focal point for the town that gave ours its name. The name Boston is generally traced to Botolph’s town. The Getty Research Institute’s place-name record includes “Botolph’s Town” among its historical names. By the time the name reached Massachusetts, the shorter form had already done the work. John Cotton came later John Cotton is an important part of the connection between the two Bostons. He served as vicar of St Botolph’s before settling in Massachusetts. But the dates matter: the American town was named in 1630, and Cotton arrived in 1633. Boston Borough Council’s account of the transatlantic connection explains how Cotton’s congregation and other local figures linked the English town to New England. It also separates that migration from the earlier story of the Pilgrims. The English Boston has a Pilgrim connection too. In 1607, separatists trying to leave for the Netherlands were betrayed and arrested there. That episode belongs to the history leading toward the Mayflower voyage, not to a single founding trip that created every English settlement in Massachusetts. Putting those events into one neat departure story loses the actual sequence. Plymouth’s 1620 settlement and Boston’s 1630 settlement were different undertakings. Cotton’s later arrival strengthened an existing connection rather than creating the name on his first day. Before Boston there was Shawmut The English name was new. The inhabited place was not. The City of Boston’s archaeological history of the Common describes thousands of years of Massachusett life in Shawmut and emphasizes that the Massachusett people are still here. Archaeologists have found stone tools, pottery and shell deposits near the Frog Pond and Parkman Bandstand. Those objects give a much longer account of life on the peninsula than a founding date printed on a city souvenir. William Blackstone, also spelled Blaxton, was already living on the peninsula when John Winthrop’s settlers arrived. In 1634, he sold land to the colonists that became the Common. The familiar park therefore holds several histories at once: Indigenous use, English settlement and the development of shared public land. A city name is only part of the map Boston’s name is comparatively straightforward once you find the English town. The names inside Boston can be less cooperative. Jamaica Plain’s name, for example, has competing explanations rather than one securely documented answer. For Boston itself, there is no need to invent a secret message or claim the Puritans were asking a saint to protect their new home. A familiar English place name traveled with a community of settlers. Understanding why that name felt familiar requires looking back across the Atlantic; understanding the place it was applied to requires looking much further back here. The next time you hear “the original Boston,” the speaker may mean a Lincolnshire market town with a very large church. Ours was the sequel.
If you think Bostonians are unfriendly, just ask them for directions
You can walk past the same person three mornings in a row and get nothing, not a nod, not a howaya, and then that same person will stand on a corner walking you from Boylston to Park Street like their train can wait. The unfriendly reputation is not a myth. Lonely Planet tells visitors we will not greet them on the street or start a conversation on the bus, and then says most of us are more than happy to give directions if they ask. Condé Nast Traveler said the same thing years ago: nobody is looking to make friends on the commute, but if you need to get somewhere, almost any stranger will help. Dan Ruben, who ran Boston Green Tourism, told the Daily Free Press that if you ask people here for directions they are as helpful as people anywhere else, they just will not smile at you first. What looks like a cold city is a city that waits to be asked. Howdies are for people you already know. Directions are for anybody who needs them. Nobody says hi first Boston.com asked readers if this is a rude city and a lot of them said yes, then explained that the problem is what other places call friendly. A Chelmsford reader told Boston.com that people here mind their own business and can sound like curt Yankees when you ask a question, while other parts of the country talk louder and stay polite even when they despise you. A Somerville reader called it brusque and then listed airport rides, surgery pickups, and meals when you are sick. An Allston reader used the line a lot of Northeasterners already know, kind but not nice. Newcomers stand there waiting for someone to volunteer a hello and decide the city is closed when it does not arrive. Standing on Boylston looking lost does not count as asking, and hovering over your phone at Arlington does not count either. We assume you know what you are doing, which is the same system as the round: you start, they answer. If you want in, ask a real question. They will talk you all the way there The directions go on so long because the city does. A right turn here does not mean what it means in a grid town. Geoff Boeing mapped street bearings across U.S. cities and found Boston does not organize around one or two compass grids. The Back Bay and South Boston have grids that do not even line up with each other, and everywhere else the streets run in enough directions that a right turn tells you where you are facing for one block and almost nothing about where you are actually going. Boston Magazine already killed the cow-path story Emerson repeated in 1860. The likelier reasons are that the original peninsula was small and hilly, later neighborhoods were filled in as separate grids, and the city annexed whole towns that already had their own street systems: Roxbury in 1868, Dorchester in 1870, Charlestown, West Roxbury, and Brighton in 1873. You are not lost because you are bad at cities. You just walked from one village into another without a sign. That is why a Bostonian will not point and say two blocks west. They will send you toward the Common, the harbor, the Pru, or a Dunkin' they have used as a landmark since before the app, and they will tell you which T, which exit, and which side of the station puts you on the wrong street. They will use the name locals say and then the name on the sign, because those are not always the same thing. Boeing, borrowing from Kevin Lynch, called Boston hard to read as a pattern and easier to hold as landmarks, which is already how people here keep the city in their head. When you ask, you are not interrupting so much as opening that map. Just ask Do not apologize for three sentences and do not tell your life story, and do not grab someone mid-crosswalk. Step out of the flow, pick one person, and ask something specific: how do I get to South Station from here, where is the Green Line, is this the way to the North End. Then let them finish, because they will talk longer than the question requires, not to show off but to keep you off Tremont when you wanted Beacon. If they offer a second route, take the first one they trusted enough to say out loud. This is the icebreaker people look for when they are new and tired of the silent sidewalk. It is one of the few times a Bostonian wants to be stopped. You think you are bothering them. They think you finally asked for something they know how to do, and in a town that treats unsolicited chat like a violation, a real question is almost a favor. If you walk off while they are still talking you were not asking, you were testing whether we are nice, and we will still get you to Park Street either way.