Who pays for the wreaths on Beacon Hill's gas lamps, and who hangs them? The answer leads to a ballroom at 84 Beacon Street and to volunteers walking up Joy Street with wreaths hooked over mop handles.
The Hill's December look is homemade. Neighbors pay for it each November, neighbors hang it each December, and the man who saved it in 1995 is hosting the fundraiser again this month. The one real change on Charles Street this season follows the same pattern. The old Beacon Hill Pub storefront is coming back under a restaurateur who lives on the Hill.
The tradition the merchants were about to drop
The story starts with a group that was running low on members. A 2015 Beacon Hill Times history of the program says Tom Kershaw led the Charles Street Merchants in 1995. That November, at a fundraiser at the Hampshire House, he told two residents, Ivy Turner and Chris Quigley, that the shrinking merchants' group had no plans to carry on its yearly tradition of decorating the Charles Street gas lamps.
Turner and Quigley offered to help. Working with Kershaw and a local floral arranger, they staged the first "Garlands and Green" fundraiser at the Hampshire House to pay for the decorations. That same effort marked the start of the Beacon Hill Business Association. Kershaw described the spirit of those first years to the Beacon Hill Times:
"It got people out and created a sense of camaraderie in a way that was not over the top, not garish, but very Beacon Hill-ish."
The next year the decorating reached Cambridge Street, and later it spread to every part of the neighborhood that had businesses. In 2000 the Business Association decorated every lamp-post on the Hill, meant as a one-time event for the millennium. Turner told the paper that people "weren't okay with being once in a lifetime," and the whole neighborhood has been decorated every year since.
Around that time the Beacon Hill Civic Association joined in. Over the years it took charge as the program became more residential and less commercial. At the suggestion of Acorn Street resident Kain Dunbaugh, the BHCA named block captains to recruit neighbors to decorate the lamps near their own homes.
Thirty-one years later, the same host
Now look at this year's invitation. The BHCA's event listing for Garlands & Greens 2026 names its host: "Mr. Tom Kershaw at the Hampshire House." The evening is Wednesday, November 18, from 6 to 9 p.m. at 84 Beacon Street, with hors d'oeuvres, drinks and live music. The money it raises pays to decorate the 1,100 gas lamps on Beacon Hill.
The scale of the job hasn't changed much over the decades. In 2015 the Beacon Hill Times reported that the event raised much of the $12,000 needed to decorate 1,089 lamp-posts. A 2014 account in the same paper described laurel garlands and red bows on the posts. In other words, a merchants' tradition has turned into a line item that neighbors fund one ticket at a time, and it still runs out of the same building where it was rescued.
Turner put it plainly in 2015: "Above all else, it's a gift to the neighborhood."
The BHCA's younger members hold their own event first. The Young Friends' Elevated Elegance, billed as The Party in the Sky, is Friday, November 13, from 7 to 10 p.m. on the 32nd floor of the UMass Club. Black tie is optional.
A new name at 147 Charles Street, from someone who lives here
The Hill's other holiday story this year is on Charles Street, and it follows the same logic. The Boston Globe reported in July that the historic, no-frills Beacon Hill Pub space, which it called one of the neighborhood's most recognizable barrooms, would reopen as a British-inspired restaurant and pub. The Pub officially closed in 2022. The space had a turbulent stretch before that. Boston.com reported in October 2018 that the Pub had closed temporarily for renovations under new management. A September 2019 report said it had reopened that January and that a fine-dining conversion was planned.
The new tenant is Harry Hare's, from the Lyons Group. Boston.com's November restaurant preview says the ale house is named after restaurateur Patrick Lyons' late father-in-law, and that Lyons himself lives on Beacon Hill. The outlet describes the concept as a public living room more than a scene. The menu includes a dedicated pot pie list with chicken, steak, lentil and duck, London-style Indian curries with charred naan, mussels steamed in La Chouffe Belgian ale, and plenty of British ales on tap. The same preview lists the opening as mid-November.
Getting the storefront ready took the usual Beacon Hill path. The Beacon Hill Times reported that at its virtual hearing on September 17, the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission approved an updated design for a new storefront at 147-149 Charles St. Project architect David Freed described the work, which includes a new wood band sign with the restaurant's name carved into it. So a pub sign on Charles Street goes through the same neighborhood-scale review as everything else on the street, and it ends up as carved wood next to the gas lamps that will be wearing garlands in a few weeks.
Two doors down, an older fixture has already come back. The Beacon Hill Times reported in August that Beacon Hill Cleaners reopened at 151 Charles St. on Monday, July 27, after a temporary closure of about two and a half years. Ledung and Hai Tran have owned it since 1991. The shop does its cleaning in-house, and items dropped off before 10 a.m. qualify for same-day alterations. Ledung Tran told the paper the owners were glad to be serving neighborhood residents again and seeing former customers.
Seventeen days from the fundraiser to the wreaths
Once the Hampshire House evening raises the money, the season moves fast. The first big lighting happens just off the Hill.
| Date | Event | Where | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri., Nov. 13 | Young Friends' Party in the Sky | UMass Club, 32nd floor | 7–10 p.m. |
| Wed., Nov. 18 | Garlands & Greens | Hampshire House, 84 Beacon St. | 6–9 p.m. |
| Thu., Dec. 3 | Boston Common Tree Lighting | Boston Common, 139 Tremont St. | 6–8 p.m. |
| Thu., Dec. 3 | Commonwealth Avenue Mall lighting | Commonwealth Avenue Mall | Around 8 p.m. |
| Sat., Dec. 5 | BHCA Holiday Decorating | Across Beacon Hill | 9 a.m.–5 p.m. |
The City of Boston's event page explains that Nova Scotia sends the Common's tree each year as thanks for Boston's help after the 1917 Halifax Explosion. The city calls 2026 the 55th year of the gift. The Commonwealth Avenue Mall display lights the same evening around 8 p.m., once the celebration on the Common wraps up.
Two days later the decorating moves onto the Hill's own streets. The BHCA calendar lists Holiday Decorating for Saturday, December 5, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The association says Block Captains and neighborhood volunteers handle the seasonal decorating and the undecorating afterward. The 2023 edition shows what the day looks like. A Beacon Hill Times photo caption described volunteers carrying wreaths looped on mops and brooms as they walked through the neighborhood, hanging 2,200 wreaths on posts. One pair was pictured carrying wreaths up Joy Street. That works out to two wreaths per lamp across a neighborhood of about 1,100 lamps, and it all gets done in a single Saturday.
If you want to help, the BHCA has a volunteer page, and your block captain can tell you which posts near your door still need hands. Tickets for the Hampshire House evening are sold through the BHCA's events listing.
When the wreaths go up on December 5, the posts outside 147 Charles St. will be decorated right beside the carved wood band sign the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission approved for Harry Hare's in September.
Our team at Allison Blank & Company knows the blocks where a carved sign needs a commission hearing and a lamp-post comes with a block captain. If you're weighing how a Beacon Hill home fits your plans for next year, we'd be glad to talk it through. Start your Newton or Brookline market plan, or a Beacon Hill one, with us.
