Below is Wonderland’s guide to dazzling holiday decorations around greater Boston, from Attleboro to Somerville (listed by community, in alphabetical order). This is based on several years exploring region during the Christmas season. Below are sites I’ve confirmed for 2020. I’ll be updating this list, so if you know of great places I’ve missed, please send me a photo and the address!
If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon. And sign up for our free, (hopefully) weekly newsletter so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content ©Greg Cook 2020 or the respective creators.)
Attleboro: 947 Park St.
The National Shrine of Our Lady Of La Salette, 947 Park St., Attleboro, fills its grounds with its annual “Christmas Festival of Lights.”
Boston Parks
Find holiday lights at Boston Common, Public Garden, Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Christopher Columbus Park Trellis, and Copley Square.
Boston: Community Boating, along the Esplanade near the Longfellow Bridge at 21 David G. Mugar Way
Boston: Macy’s windows, 450 Washington St. Downtown Crossing
Danvers: Arthur Street
Gloucester: 197 Main St.
Ipswich: Cedar Brook Farm, Essex Road/Route 1
Malden: 20 Dale St.
Malden: 1 Rockingham Ave.
Melrose: 223 Washington St., just south of Gould Street
Providence: Roger Williams Park Zoo</3>
Holiday Lights Spectacular at Roger Williams Park Zoo.
Saugus: Oakdale Avenue, just east of Lynn Fells Parkway
Saugus: 5 Laurine Road, just east of Lynn Fells Parkway
Saugus: 7 Lynn Fells Parkway
Saugus: 16 and 22 Lynn Fells Parkway
The Amsden and the Guarino families, who share a driveway, have long been behind this show-stopping display.
Saugus: 401 Lynn Fells Parkway
Saugus: 401 Lynn Fells Parkway
Michael Conlon wishes visitors “Peace on Earth” at his Saugus home distinguished by its blue and white lights.
Somerville: 7-9 Ames St., at the corner of Robinson Street
Somerville: 31 and 32 Otis Street, just west of Cross Street
“I’ve been doing it almost 30 years,” John Ragno told me in 2013. He decorates three houses he owns here, two side by side, and one across the street. “I started off with a manger outside, a small manger on the porch. And it grew.”
Somerville Illuminations Tour
Illuminations Tour Deconstructed from the Somerville Arts Council offers a great directory and Google map of decorated homes and art installations, plus a podcast tour by Jon Bernhardt.
Stoneham: 83 Franklin St., at Pearl Street
Brian Gudzevich’s computer animated display of some 30,000 lights on 83 Franklin St., at Pearl Street, that he calls “The Lights at Wolf Hill.”
Stoneham: 1167 Franklin St.
Stoneham: Stone Zoo, 149 Pond St.
The Stone Zoo’s wooded paths are lit up for its annual “ZooLights” nightly through Dec. 31. Visit Santa’s Castle for a sit down with the jolly old elf. See a live reindeer. Admission charges.
Topsfield: 198 Ipswich Road
Wilmington, 12R Concord St.
The lights go on at Charles Fiore’s display around 4:30 each evening, and immediately a traffic jam forms a mile long of vehicles waiting to drive through. The 23-year-old’s display, which includes an avenue of lit-up stage facades in front of his house, won $50,000 for the 2020 first-place prize on ABC’s reality TV show “The Great Christmas Light Fight.”
Unconfirmed for 2020
Many of these places have had wonderful holiday decorations in past years:
• Belmont: 441 and 429 Pleasant St.
• Beverly: 48 Railroad Ave. at Hardy Street
• Braintree: 120 Messina Woods Drive. In past years, several neighboring houses have featured lights synchronized to music.
• Boston: Adams Street, just north of Victory Road, Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.
• Boston: 62 Tuttle St.
• Chelsea: Corner of Marginal and Pearl streets, atop salt piles at Eastern Minerals along the Chelsea River.
• Danvers: Arthur Street
• Dedham: 262 Needham St.: The nativity scene outside St. Susanna’s Parish Church often challenges U.S. government policy.
• Framingham: Perry H Henderson Drive
• Lincoln: Trapelo Road near library.
• Medford: 6 Everett St.
• Medford: 56 and 60 Haines St.
• Medford: 85 George P. Hassett Dr., Medford City Hall
http://www.jinglebellfestival.org/events/event1.htm
• Peabody: 10 Summit St., visible from Route 128
• Waltham: 30 Albemarle Rd. Much of this elaborate display has been hand-made by the Schueler family over three decades. (Not on view in 2020)
• Waltham: 1369 Trapelo Rd.
• Woburn: 219 Cambridge Rd.
If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon. And sign up for our free, (hopefully) weekly newsletter so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content ©Greg Cook 2020 or the respective creators.)