5 Sleeps 'til Christmas!
KNOW THIS
5 Sleeps ‘til Christmas!
Very happy and healthy holiday wishes from the Inbound Team to you. Looking to get one last COVID test before reuniting with family? Massachusetts and LabCorp have teamed up to provide free at-home PCR tests to those who meet one or more of these guidelines:
Experiencing mild symptoms
Exposed to someone with COVID-19
Live or work in a congregate setting (a place where people reside, meet, or gather in close proximity)
Asked to get tested by a healthcare professional, contact investigator, or public health dept
Request your at-home test here before 3 p.m. and it’ll arrive at your door the next day - requests after 3:00 take two days to get to you. Results are available 1-2 days after the lab receives your sample. If you prefer walk-up testing, sites are still available all over the city. Find a site near you here. Need something to do in line? Schedule your booster appointment here. Or, read about Boston’s ban on Christmas below.
From Christmas Ban to Christmas Empire
It’s well known that the Puritans were extremely strict and loved to express that by writing extremely strict laws. Live theater was banned due to “the great and many mischiefs that arise from public stage-plays.” Toasting while drinking - axed. And Christmas, paganist, superfluous, luxurious Christmas was chopped as it was observed “men dishonor[ed] Christ more in the 12 days of Christmas than in all the 12 months besides.” For an in-depth take on the original war on Christmas, check out this Hub History podcast episode. But as the colony grew wealthier, the hearts of men were tempted and Christmas was decriminalized in 1681 but remained taboo until after the Civil War. Coincidentally, the same year Boston legally recognized the holiday, Louis Prang came to town from Germany and turned his groundbreaking chromolithographs into a Christmas card empire - printing 5 million cards annually after just 5 years in business. Prang was also interested in the welfare and rights of the women he employed and routinely sought out women artists, advertising his art contests in the women’s rights journal Revolution and fairly paying and exhibiting the works of the artists selected. His old factory still stands (present day shot here) in Roxbury and is a building in the Lorenzo Pitts portfolio, contributing to a grand total of 200 units of recently renovated affordable housing. Merry Christmas indeed!
DO THIS
Today
Join the Somerville community, Sen. Liz Warren, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and City Council President Matthew McLaughlin in person or online for Mayor Curtatone’s Farewell Address after 9 terms as mayor. 6 p.m.//free
Celebrate the holidays at the Coolidge with every contrarian’s favorite Christmas movie: Die Hard. 7 p.m.//$14
Learn more about the new cottages being built on Franklin Park’s Shattuck campus to house up to 30 of the people currently living on Mass and Cass at a public meeting hosted by the Franklin Park Coalition. 7 - 9 p.m.//free
Tomorrow
Celebrate the Winter Solstice with Ranger Tim and a guided walk around Fresh Pond as you marvel at the earliest sunset (4:15pm!!) of 2021. 2:30 - 4:30 p.m.//free
Wednesday
Drifter’s Tale hosts holiday-themed bingo called by Drag Queen Patty Bourrée. Stop by for drinks, music, and prizes filled with yuletide cheer. 7 p.m.//$5
Get to the Speedway for some brews from Notch and tunes in the courtyard from The Scrooges. 7 p.m.//free
Thursday
Get your best Christmas jammies and onesies ready for Midway Cafe’s Queeraoke Holiday Bash. 8:30 p.m.//$8
Comedy at a bookstore? Why not? Get to Brookline Booksmith for free standup among the stacks at How Bout Comedy’s “How Bout Booksmith?” 7 p.m.//free
Friday
If you’re an award-winning procrastinator, you can still get your Christmas spruce via pickup or delivery from the Tree Market at the Track tonight! 12 - 8 p.m.//free
See a different kind of night time glow at Harvard Ed Portal’s installation of FREQUENCIES, an after-dark multimedia art piece made from sights and sounds of Allston-Brighton recorded by people from the neighborhood and remixed by artists Allison Tanenhaus and Maria Finkelmeier. 5 - 10 p.m.//free
Saturday
Spread a little holiday cheer by donating to the Zippah Recording Recovery Fund. The recording studio was destroyed by an 8-alarm fire Dec 17th. Read more about Zippah and its impact on the local music scene here.
Sunday
Float over to The Rink at 401 Park in Fenway for all-levels IceFlow, a yogi-ice skating class to help you stretch, breathe, and glide across the ice. 10 a.m.//free
This week’s edition of Inbound was brought to you by Maya Detwiller.