🛍️😅 Snowport better watch its back ...

🤯💼 Looking for a new job? We have 175 suggestions. And they’re all on the Globe’s 2025 “Top Places to Work” list. See: companies offering paid sabbaticals, free day care, and office golf simulators!

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

🍰 On the second day of B-Side, the newsletter gave to me: 10 cake-sampler boxes from Lizzie’s Bakery! Lizzie’s is known for small-batch, scratch-made treats, and these sampler boxes showcase the bakery’s most beloved flavors. Each box includes an assortment of mini cake slices — perfectly frosted, beautifully packaged, and ideal for sharing (or not!). These curated samplers offer a little taste of everything that makes Lizzie’s so special.

👀 Want in? Be one of the first 10 members to fill out the form in your email TODAY between 3 and 4 p.m., and the cake is yours! (Also, apologies about the delay in yesterday’s drop — technical difficulties!). 

Now, onto our regularly scheduled programming …

You know SoWa … you know Snowport … but those are just the tip of the Boston holiday market iceberg. 

And since the whole point of a holiday market is to make your gifting life easier, we combed through them all to choose the best, most unique shopping experiences:

🇫🇷 Marché de Noël | The French Library | Dec. 6. Besides a rare chance to see Boston’s stunning French Library in its holiday best, you’ll get access to tons of local French vendors, a free crochet class, and tastings of gourmet French goodies. Tickets are $5.

🛍️ Select Markets x B-Side | MGM Music Hall | Dec. 6-7. Wait … is this play about US? We’re teaming up with Select Markets for the ultimate holiday market with a DJ, free food, and TONS of vintage. Early bird tix are ~$13, and B-Side Members get $5 off. While you’re in the neighborhood, The Fenway Foodies Club put together some sweet freebies and deals, available all weekend. Just mention “The Fenway Foodies Club” or show this passport to redeem them!

😈 Brighton Bazaar: Krampusfest | The Speedway | Dec. 6-7. Think the holidays are a little too jolly? Enter: Boston’s only “dark” holiday market celebrating Krampus, the German folkloric figure who punishes the naughty. Expect weird and witchy wares, food, and plenty of shenanigans.

🙋‍♀️ Boston Women’s Holiday Market | Multiple locations | Dec. 6, 7, 13, 20. Wanna shop women-owned on the weekend? There’s probably a Boston Women’s Market for that. You can find their lineup of local women-owned businesses at The Huntington, Time Out, Night Shift, and even at the top of the Pru.

🎁 Small Mart | Crystal Ballroom | Dec. 6 and 20. It may be called Small Mart, but this year, it’s bigger than ever, with free access to 40+ local artisan, maker, and vintage vendors. Bonus: There’s a full bar!

🔔 Union Square Jingle | Union Square | Dec. 7. With FOUR different pop-up markets, a stroll-the-square challenge with cash prizes, tons of discounts and specials, and live music, this is the granddaddy of holiday markets. Our pop-up pick: The eco-friendly Green & Jolly Holiday Faire.

👏🏾 Black Business Holiday Marketplace | Brattle Square | Dec. 12-14. From food to clothes to homegoods, you can find tons of local Black-owned businesses under one roof.

🪴 Clay Lounge Holiday Market | SoWa | Dec. 13. Calling all wannabe pottery girlies: Over 30 local artists are taking over SoWa for a pottery-palooza, put on by our faves, the Clay Lounge.

🥐 Paris-level indulgence, Boston-style pricing. Use code BEAUBG to snag $8 off when you spend $30 on Rochambeau’s lineup of steak frites, decadent desserts, and all the brasserie classics you crave on DoorDash. Whether it’s a low-key night in, a cozy dinner before their NYE bash, or a midweek treat-yourself moment, this deal keeps things effortless, festive, and très délicieux.

❄️🖼️ This December, the Museum of Fine Arts is decking the walls (with masterpieces). Come celebrate the holiday season with First Fridays on 12/5, where dancing, art-making, and festive vibes set the tone. Come back for the Hanukkah celebration on 12/18 with $5 admission after 5 p.m., then wander through standout exhibitions like Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer in Watercolor and the NYT Critic’s Pick Martin Puryear: Nexus. Cap it off with a browse through the MFA Shop or a cozy bite at New American Café, and you’ll have turned a chilly winter day into a fun little memory. Start planning your visit today. 

🗳️ Mass. is primed for a ballot question bonanza. Per Secretary of State William Galvin, a whopping 11 (!) 2026 ballot campaigns cleared the hurdle of submitting 74,574 voter signatures to his office — from rent control to same-day voter registration to repealing recreational pot. While this doesn’t necessarily mean all 11 will appear on the ballot (there are still several more steps, including certifying said signatures) if they did, it would set a new ballot Q record in Mass., which currently stands at nine. Check out all the potential Q’s here.

🚇 The Orange and Green Lines are about to clock OUT. From Dec. 5 to 6, the Orange Line will be OOO between Back Bay and Forest Hills, with shuttles replacing normal service. To avoid ‘em, try the commuter rail, which will be fare-free between Forest Hills, Ruggles, Back Bay, and South Station. And while we’re here: We’d start mentally preparing for the massive, 15-day Green Line shutdown across all four branches starting Dec. 8. Think: No service between North Station and Babcock Street, Kenmore, and Heath Street. More on that later!

🐀 The smartest cities in America can’t outsmart Boston rats. As Camberville continues to face a growing rodent problem, officials have a new motto in the war on rats: Violence isn’t the answer. Literally! Rats reproduce so quickly that unaliving them doesn’t really work (not-so-fun fact, one female rat can have 15,000 babies a year in ideal conditions). So the preferred strategy is to make sure those baby-making conditions aren’t ideal, e.g. limiting access to food, water, and shelter through better waste management practices.

💼 Bostonians don’t play about WFH Fridays. Case in point: We have the second-lowest rate of Friday office visits of any major U.S. metro, according to a new report. Our 10.8% rate puts us behind all but Chicago. And apparently, other days of the week aren’t much better. Overall, Boston ranks third-to-last for in-office visits, with a massive 40.5% drop between Oct. 2019 and Oct. 2025. Dive into the full report here.

🎨 Browse nearly 60New England’s biggest public art sale is back at Tufts this weekend, with a range of new and established artists selling over 2,000(!) pieces. Entry is free!

📚 Find your next (cheap!) read. You can score books for as low as $1 at BOTH the BPL’s giant winter book sale on Dec. 6, and the Somerville Public Library’s on Dec. 6 and 7. Proceeds benefit library programming.

👗 Shop your neighbors’ closets. At Style Exchange thrift market, all the vendors are fellow Bostonians selling clothes straight from their closets. They’ll be popping up in Dorchester Dec. 6, and in Southie on Dec. 7.

❄️ Walk in a winter wonderland. A.k.a. Winter Fest. The Charlestown winter festival is back in biz this weekend after an off-season makeover, including a new vendor market, carousel, arcade-style games, and more.

🧖 Turn up the heat. Did someone say FREE sauna? Revere’s Gibson Point is offering free 20-minute sauna sessions (which are totally B-Side Certified!) from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 7 as part of a Christmas tree pop-up.

🍪 Keep calm and eat cookies. That’s the name of the game at this mental health cookie swap on Dec. 7. Listen to mental health speakers, make holiday crafts, and if you want, bring three dozen cookies to swap!

🛍️ Enter the shopping Olympics. That’s what we’re calling Open Newbury Street’s Holiday Stroll on Dec. 7, which will see the iconic shopping street shut down to cars and decked out in its holiday best.

🎁 Hit up a(nother) holiday market. Yes, we STILL have more epic holiday markets to plug, including this foodie-centric one from Hi-Rise Bread Company on Dec. 7 where you can find tons of gourmet goodies.

Spotify says Taylor Swift was your top artist of the year. We say it was the Boylston wheel squeal. 

While Spotify Wrapped never fails to break the internet as-is, we couldn’t help but wonder what a Boston Wrapped would be like … so we made our own! And we think it’s pretty spot-on.

For example: Instead of a “listening age,” Boston Wrapped has the number of years MBTA shuttles have taken off our lives (spoiler: a LOT). Instead of jump-scaring you with the thousands of minutes you spent listening to music and podcasts, we included the equally-horrifying amount of time you spent driving from Boston to Boston.

And don’t even ask us how much we spent on Dunkin’ iced medium regulars … that we’ll never finish.

Check out our full Boston Wrapped here.

— Written by Gia Orsino, Emily Schario, and Claire Nicholas

🎵 Thanks for reading! Our favorite comment: “The O’Neill Jr. Tunnel is my third place 😍💖.”

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for supporting local journalism and bringing culturally rich experiences to our city.

🎄The results are in: 38% of B-Siders are pro-fake Christmas trees. One reader shared this horrifying anecdote: “I was anti-fake tree until my real tree hatched THOUSANDS of baby spiders one year .... there will never ever be another real tree in my home again. (Still itching when I think about this).” OMG. Say no more!

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