🤒 Don’t get COVID in your stocking

It's Tuesday, Boston.

🔥 If you’re an outdoor diner for life, here’s a list of igloos and fire pits open for business this winter.

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Mass. gets its first climate chief

• Dreaming of a wet Christmas

• Last-minute local gift guide

Up first…

HEALTH & WELLNESS

It’s the most infectious time of the year

COVID-19 and flu cases in Mass. are on the rise — just in time for the holidays. And while this isn’t our first rodeo navigating a COVID Christmas, it is our first time navigating COVID and the worst flu season we’ve seen in over a decade. Throw in the fact that mask-wearing appears to be a thing of the past and you’ve got a festive Petri dish of infectious disease.

So how can you stay healthy this holiday season? Dr. Sandra Nelson, the Associate Clinical Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at MGH, and Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission, have some advice:

1. Try a modified pre-travel “quarantine.” This means reducing your risky activities leading up to your holiday gatherings, i.e., masking up if you’re going out.

2. Wear a mask when traveling. If there are people around you coughing, the air changes on a plane, train, or automobile won’t immediately protect you, but a well-fitting mask (worn correctly) can reduce your risk of infection.

3. At-home antigen testing will be your best friend. While it may seem cumbersome to swab your nose throughout a visit, it does offer some level of protection, especially for high-risk family members. You can order free at-home COVID tests from the federal government again this year here, too.

4. It’s still not too late to get your flu shot and bivalent COVID booster. Vaccines are our strongest prevention strategy. And although it can take a few weeks for vaccinations to take their full effect, flu season can last until May and the risk of COVID-19 transmission will likely still ebb and flow for a while. P.S. If you get your COVID vaccine or booster at one of these sites throughout Boston, you’ll get a $75 gift card (while supplies last).

As Dr. Nelson said, “You can’t get the risk down to zero, but you can drive it down a lot.”

CITY

Quick & Dirty Headlines

🌳 Massachusetts is getting its first-ever climate chief. Governor-elect Maura Healey tapped Melissa Hoffer, a current employee at the Environmental Protection Agency, to serve in the new role in Healey’s incoming administration. We’re apparently the first state in the country to have a Cabinet-level role like this. Hoffer’s appointment fulfills part of Healey’s climate plan she released while on the campaign trail.

🧑‍⚖️ Supreme Judicial Court rejects call to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Mass. The court unanimously ruled that the right to a physician-assisted suicide is not protected under the state’s constitution, meaning a doctor who provides life-ending medication to a patient can be prosecuted for manslaughter. This ruling kicks the decision-making back to lawmakers on Beacon Hill, setting the stage for a battle over a bill that would allow doctors to prescribe lethal drugs for patients with incurable diseases.

✈️ Heading home for the holidays? Mother Nature might throw a wrench in your plans. Meteorologists are keeping an eye on a strong storm system that will likely impact New England later this week. It’s looking like a wintry mix on Thursday night will turn into wind and rain on Friday with potential wind gusts of up to 50 mph. Throw in some astronomically high tides and one to two inches of rain, and we’ll probably see some coastal flooding, too. Airports across the country will be impacted by this storm, so if you’re flying out of Logan, you may want to think of a back-up travel plan.

THINGS TO DO

Shops to pop in for last-minute gifts

🌶 Find a gift for your foodie friends at the Curio Spice Company in Porter Square. Their Seasoned Greetings Cause Box includes four spices and a $20 donation to a local food rescue organization.

🍺 Bring home your favorite local brews from Turtle Swamp Brewing. You can order single cans, four-packs, or merch online and pick them up at their Jamaica Plain location.

🛍 Stop by the Bos. Shop from Black Owned Bos. in the South End and browse potential gifts and goodies from over 20 local, Black-owned brands.

🎁 Grab your stocking stuffers from the Giftsmith, a local gift shop within the walls of the Brookline Booksmith in Coolidge Corner. It was voted Boston magazine's Best Gift Shop of 2022. Grab some books while you’re there, too.

🍫 Snag crowd-pleasing sweets from Boston’s oldest chocolate store at Phillips Chocolates in Dorchester. I’m partial to the fudge.

12 DAYS OF THE B-SIDE

A safe space this Christmas season

For our final installment of our ‘12 Days of The B-Side’ series, we bring you the story of how Boston’s Arlington Street Church is hoping to give the local LGBTQ community a safe space to celebrate the holiday season.

Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie, a senior minister of the church, understands that some churches may not feel welcoming to the LGBTQ community, so she’s making sure that LGBTQ people can attend Christmas Eve services while being authentically themselves.

One of the ways her church does this is having the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus sing holiday carols for the 7 and 9 p.m. services.

“To me, it really, really matters that everybody, including queer people, feels like they have a home for the holidays,” Crawford Harvie said.

🍞 Thanks for reading! Boston.com readers shared their favorite Bertucci’s dishes, and surprisingly, the rolls didn’t make the No. 1 spot.

💃 Keep up with other B-Side tomfoolery on IG, TikTok, and Twitter @BostonBSide. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected].