Who Puts the Wreaths on Beacon Hill's Gas Lamps? A Merchant Idea the Neighbors Took Over

Who hung the red bow on the gas lamp outside your door last December? Most likely a neighbor. The Beacon Hill Civic Association runs the job as a volunteer effort. It raises the money at one cocktail party in November and sends neighbors out with greens and ribbon on the first full weekend of December.

That arrangement is younger than the lamps and younger than most Hill traditions. It began as a rescue plan for Charles Street. Over three decades it became something residents own outright, and the 2026 version starts next Wednesday, November 18, at the Hampshire House.

1995: the year the merchants ran out of money

The Beacon Hill Times traced the tradition back to 1995 in a 2019 Civic Association column. Tom Kershaw, Ivy Turner and Chris Quigley of the Charles Street Merchants, the group now called the Beacon Hill Business Association, saw that their shrinking merchants group could no longer afford to decorate the street. Rather than let the holiday greenery lapse, the three of them and a local floral arranger took the effort on themselves. They held the first fundraiser at the Hampshire House.

In those first years only Charles Street got decorated. The column says the Beacon Hill Civic Association joined soon after, and greenery and ribbons spread to gas lamps across the Hill. From there, the BHCA "gradually assumed the reins as the program switched from a business to a residential focus."

So the decorations on Pinckney, Mount Vernon or Joy Street began as an extension of a shopping street's holiday budget. They lasted because residents picked up the cost and the labor when the shops could not.

How a week of work became one weekend

The 2019 column counted that season as the 24th year of decorated lamps and the 20th year of decorating the whole Hill. By that count, this December is the lamps' 31st.

Some people stayed with it from the start. In 2019 Kershaw was still throwing the party that pays for the decorations, and Turner was still directing the hundreds of volunteers who put them up. The column credits her leadership with shrinking a job that once took almost a week down to two days on the first full weekend of December. Kershaw is again listed as host of this year's benefit at the Hampshire House, 31 years after the first one in the same building.

The way the work is organized has also become part of how the Hill runs. The BHCA's volunteer page describes Block Captains as contacts for their sections of the neighborhood. They welcome neighbors, organize cleanups, work with nearby volunteers, and help with seasonal decorating and undecorating. The wreath on a given lamp is often a block-level job, run by someone who lives on that block.

What 1,100 lamps take

The supply list shows why a single party has to carry the cost. The 2019 column put the annual need at 2,680 yards of garland and 2,400 red bows for the Hill's 1,100 historic gas lamps. Boston Uncovered covered the 2025 season and described the neighborhood dressed in more than 2,000 red bows and 2,000 fresh wreaths.

At either count, that comes to roughly two bows for every lamp. The money comes from neighbors. When decorating began in December 2025, the BHCA's Beacon Hill Times column thanked "all neighbors who have donated to help defray the cost of the decorations." The association's November 2025 planning note summed up the job in one line:

"It takes many wreaths, bows and You to decorate our 1,100 gas lamps!"

That line ran in the Beacon Hill Times.

The 2026 calendar, from the party to the last candle

The tradition still runs on the same two steps it started with: a fundraiser at the Hampshire House, then a weekend of hands-on work. Around them sits a December full of other Hill events. Here are the dates in order:

1. Garlands & Greens, Wednesday, November 18, 6 to 9 p.m. The benefit takes place at the Hampshire House, 84 Beacon Street, and the BHCA describes it as a night of hors d'oeuvres, drinks and live music that raises money to decorate the gas lamps. Tickets are $60 for BHCA members and $75 for nonmembers, and the form has a field for an extra contribution.
2. Nichols House Museum candlelight tours, December 2, 3, 9, 16 and 17. These are on the museum's 2026 calendar.
3. Boston Common tree lighting, Thursday, December 3, 6 to 8 p.m. This date and time come from the City's calendar.
4. Holiday Decorating, Saturday and Sunday, December 5 and 6, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Home base is 74 Joy Street. To help, call the BHCA office at 617-227-1922. Last year volunteers could also just walk in at 74 Joy Street after 9 a.m., and the weekend ended with pizza and beer there on Sunday at 5 p.m.
5. BHCA Holiday Concert, Thursday, December 10, 6:30 p.m. It takes place at the Harvard Musical Association. The same night, the Nichols House Museum holds its Eggnog Pre-Party.
6. Beacon Hill Holiday House Tour, Sunday, December 13, noon to 4 p.m. The Nichols House Museum lists the tour as sold out and says more tickets may be released.

The decorating weekend falls two days after the Common's tree lighting. So the first week of December is when the Hill changes over, from the Common's tree on Thursday to garland on side-street lamps by Sunday evening.

Charles Street still gets its night

The merchants who started all this still hold a December evening on the street where it began. Last year, Boston Uncovered reported, the Beacon Hill Holiday Stroll ran on Thursday, December 4, 2025, from 6 to 9 p.m. Charles Street was closed to cars between Cambridge and Beacon streets, and the neighborhood tree was lit at 7 p.m. at the corner of Charles and Mount Vernon. The Beacon Hill Times listed the Stroll and tree lighting as a Beacon Hill Business Association event in its look back at 2025.

Stores take an active part. At the 2024 Stroll, according to the Beacon Hill Times, Laura and Bob Cousineau hosted the evening at Upstairs Downstairs Home, 69 Charles Street, even though scaffolding had gone up in front of the shop days earlier. The night included carols led by John Martin, the Boston Balladeer, and the return of a Faneuil Hall Advent calendar with gifts hidden in 25 boxes.

This season, some storefronts under the garland are changing hands. In September the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission approved a new storefront at 147–149 Charles Street, including cedar window boxes. The space, once the Beacon Hill Pub, is planned as Harry Hare's, a British-style pub from restaurateur Patrick Lyons. The same hearing approved a sign and awning for Brick Street Bagel at 160 Charles Street, the former Savenor's Market. Some of the names along the street will be new this year, but the street's Stroll and its tree lighting date back to the merchant group that started the decorating.

The older traditions the wreaths joined

The lamp decorating is a young tradition by Beacon Hill standards. In its 2024 Stroll coverage, the Beacon Hill Times listed the older ones. Outdoor caroling was started by parishioners of the Church of the Advent in 1859. The Beacon Hill Bell Ringers began in 1924, inspired by Margaret Shurcliff. Single candles in windows started during the Depression in 1933, begun by Alfred Shurtleff at 9 West Cedar Street. On Christmas Eve 2025, the Bell Ringers rang and sang carols in Louisburg Square.

Each of those traditions started with one parish, one household or one group of neighbors. The gas lamp greens fit the same pattern. Three merchants and a floral arranger started them in 1995, and the people who live under the lamps now pay for them and put them up.

If you're planning December around the Hill, from Garlands & Greens to the decorating weekend on Joy Street, The Loveland Group is glad to share what we know about the neighborhood and its seasonal calendar. Start a conversation whenever it suits you.