Early in the twentieth century Beacon Hill residents took a dim view of bright lights. “There is an undeniable charm of old-fashioned dignity in the quiet residence streets of Beacon Hill in Boston. In repose and lack of ostentation they are not of the America we know today,” explained a 1910 article in the Architectural Record.
The article went on to endorse a tasteful change. Noted architect Ralph Adams Cram and several Chestnut Street neighbors agreed to place lighted candles in the window on Christmas Eve. “The effect of a street lighted by candles in the house windows, with no shades drawn, is very pretty as can be imagined.” It remains so today.
(In 1907 Cram revived the practice. It had started a few years earlier with the Shurtleff family on West Cedar Street.)