As the weather cools, Boston's sewer alligators begin their slow migration out of our public works and down the Charles to more equatorly places. Say goodbye to the giant reptilians till spring, and make sure to bid them adieu with a hug. Just try keep that gator from turning the embrace into a death roll. The Bostonist covers all sorts of critter-related happenings about town. Interested? You should be! For more information, contact the......

What would December 25 in Boston be without an image of Dominic Luberto's light-filled wonderland? Image by tommyvon from photos tagged "Bostonist" on Flickr.......

Bostonist finds that food makes a great gift for even the most difficult to shop for. Some of our favorite local food purveyors have made it easy for us with food-of-the-month clubs. We’d be thrilled to receive the gift of pork from Savenor’s, which has a bacon-of-the-month club. For something sweet, Pemberton Farms of Cambridge has a coffee-cake-of-the-month club and plenty of locally themed gift baskets. Formaggio Kitchen, famous for having its own cheese......

Ethan Gilsdorf and Ted Weesner, Jr. Friday, December 14, 7:00 pm Willoughby and Baltic Art Space 195 G Elm Street, Somerville (T: Davis Square) Free Ethan Gilsdorf's official site Listings for readings may be slim while everyone is busy for the holidays, but it's quality that matters. Two recipients of fellowships from the Somerville Arts Council will be sharing their latest projects for free tomorrow night. Journalist/poet Ethan Gilsdorf and novelist Ted Weesner, Jr., are......

Is there a Republican in your life that you really love? Or a Democrat you love to hate? Get them the perfect holiday present by going--we're not kidding--holiday shopping with former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney. The following gifts are available for the Mitt-lover in your life: $50: Signed Romney family photo (it's probably large for obvious reasons) and mugs $100: The above, plus a Romney for President ornament and signed recipes......

Illuminations Holiday Tour Saturday, December 15 Tour times: 4:30, 5:00, 5:45, 6:15, 7:00, 7:30, 8:15, 8:45, 9:15 Tickets on sale at McIntyre and Moore Booksellers, 255 Elm Street, Davis Square More info Fighting off a raging case of Seasonal Affective Disorder? Somerville has a cure. The city's residents know how to decorate, and when it's the holidays they want to share their spirit with everyone. The Somerville Arts Council will be offering 45-minute-long trolley tours......

PofD newbie (and England transplant, so he's automatically cooler than all of us) marty_pinker grabbed this great shot on a recent trip to Provincetown. We love the bright and warm colors, and the perspective really makes the Fisherman's Wives mural stand out. Great job! Hey PotD fans - I know it's the holidays and people are busy and such, but just a friendly reminder to keep the photos coming! The Flickr pool has seen......

Everybody's favorite mustache month is wrapping up nicely, with some film stars ostensibly in town to shoot movies but succeeding mostly in displaying some fine facial hair. Both William H. Macy and Steve Martin rocked the 'stache in Boston recently. We like Martin's dapper style, but Macy wins for volume. (The bathrobe is a nice touch, too.) And with December looming, Santa brings out the beard 'n mustache combo, much to the dismay of some......

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and......

-- The Mashpee Wampanoag celebrated federal recognition yesterday. "We are not celebrating Thanksgiving," said Shawn Hendricks, president of the tribal council. "It's not one of the better holidays for us. Columbus Day, that's not our top holiday, either." -- The sprinkler law is full of holes. Only 22 Boston bars have installed sprinkler systems. The rest remain as flammable as before. -- Pot advocates gathered 105,000 signatures, enough to get a decriminalization initiative on......

Our neighbor, New Hampshire, is indulging in primary one-upmanship by moving its presidential primary up to January 8 to beat Michigan's January 15 date. For Boston, this means an endless parade of presidential candidates on television, a lot sooner than we're used to now that the states are trying to get a slice of the money the primaries will bring. The early primaries force the candidates to put the pedal to the medal and automatically......

Oldies station WODS (103.3 FM) is already playing holiday music. Laurel Sweet at the Herald wrote, "Admit it: You love it." No, we do not love it! At least it's easy to turn the FM dial away from the Trans-Siberan Orchestra's "What Is Christmas?" But what about the sudden appearance of Starbucks holiday cups? And what about Rachael Ray's uber-perky Dunkies ad? Amy at Boston Daily is already feeling irritated by Ray's self-proclaimed "million pounds"......

Dominic Luberto's annual feat of light pollution Christmas devotion -- 500,000 bulbs and counting -- has long brought media attention to his Jamaica Plain home and won him admirers across the globe. He gets fan letters simply addressed to "Christmas Castle" and has started his own children's charity drive. But his crowning achievement may be his undoing. The Globe has more details on the City's efforts to bring down the "Crown of Christ" that Luberto......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

August 10th has been designated "Lazy Day" by the Council of Useless Holidays*, and here at Bostonist we encourage you to take part in celebrating this most hallowed of days. Take the words of Jules Renard to heart: "Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired." Hear Hear! So forward your calls to voicemail, put your feet up, and savor the sweet feeling of doing....nothing. Image of what we......

Governor Deval Patrick has signed off on a "tax holiday" that will encourage people to go shopping and juice the local economy. If you don't feel like paying the state's 5 percent sales tax, then you can drop your bucks on whatever you like as long as it doesn’t go over $2,500 on the weekend of August 11 and 12. Massachusetts has done this in the past because maybe the schools, the transportation, and......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

It's on. The Yankees announced today that Roger Clemens (left, lying down) has consented to spend weekends and holidays in the Bronx this year, for a princely sum of roughly $28 million. The Red Sox apparently made Clemens an offer, but the idea of bookending his career in Boston and accumulating major karma points apparently wasn't worth the millions that Steinbrenner presumably overbid. Bostonist never was quite sure how we felt about the idea of......

Hey, don't blame Bostonist if the door hits Mitt Romney's behind a few times in one day as he vacates the corner office. Not only did the SJC deny him the chance to force legislators to vote on a measure that would put banning same-sex marriage on the ballot (not a total victory, but not terrible, either), but governor-elect Deval Patrick has thumbed his nose at the man he will replace by restoring the old......

The Supreme Judicial Court gave Mitt Romney and his conservative cohorts a mild smacking today when the justices ruled that they cannot force legislators to vote on whether or not a proposal to ban gay marriage should be on the 2008 ballot. This ruling is the latest in a set of complex legal wranglings, which Bostonist has explained here and here, that started when the Legislature recessed before voting on the proposed ballot measure. Romney......

Some people don't give crime a rest over the holidays, especially when they're under pressure to put presents under the tree. Today's BPD Blotter was filled up with people trying to fill their gift obligations at any cost. This morning's post had the following jarring change in tone: "Merry Christmas / Bank Window Smashed." (The police didn't get the perp.) Then, two guys took last-minute Christmas shopping way too seriously and tried to liberate $1,000......

The the I-90 westbound connector reopened last night when the feds signed off on the Big Dig repairs. The reopening seems awfully sneaky since it's happened over the holidays. Perhaps the Highway Department thought riders would be more likely to see a faster path from Logan Airport as a gift instead of being reminded of the sheer incompetence that led to the death of Milena Del Valle. No such luck. The Boston Herald reported the......

Happy Holidays! Chances are, you're reading this the day after Christmas, back at your day job after all-too-short a holiday, and the last thing you want from us is stuff about the holidays. But that's just too bad. Because, see, here in the Ist-A-Verse, we do things ahead of time. It might be December 26 for you, but that's what you get for not checking your Favorite Local Blog on Christmas Eve. Austinist is......

Politicians have many talents - talking a long time without saying anything, convincing people to give away large sums of cash, and throwing lavish parties. Singing isn't usually considered their strong suit. That didn't stop NECN from pulling together several Massachusetts politicians to sing the "12 Days of Christmas" in a hilarious, largely tone-deaf montage. Big guns like Ted Kennedy, Mayor Menino, and Deval Patrick good-naturedly sang their hearts out. Mitt Romney even turned out......

It may be the holidays, but it's been a terrible weekend for the entire city. First was Friday night's Dorchester drive-by that left three wounded, one critically. Last night, two people were stabbed outside Symphony Hall while the Holiday Pops merrily carried on. And then there's yesterday's news of some idiot who held up a priest with a hunting knife - inside the St. Francis Chapel. On top of that incident is the attempted kidnapping......

We could never figure out why the little bunny wanted to run away. With such a loving mother who was always there to provide food, love, warmth, and to love and hold the little bunny unconditionally there seemed little motivation to run away. A little reindeer in Somerville decided that perhaps it was time to runaway (perhaps from the Illuminations Trolley tomorrow). Hargo and Remi have illustrated the story of the Runaway Reindeer with......

With visions of sugar plum fairies dancing through their heads, the -Ists began to get into that holiday mood. Well, some did. Austinist wasn't as the NY Times dissed them and a local Tex-Mex institution sold out. Making them feel better was music, sweet music and the local theater getting name checked on "Heroes" Chicagoist tried to wrap their heads around a religious movie being banned from a Christmas themed park. To wash that......

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbqs and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder? Phillyist is concerned that the war on Trans fats could affect it's beloved cheese steak sandwiches, something for which we should all be concerned.......

So we have a weekend full of holidays, Jewish, Christian, and secular, and many in our fair city will be traveling to other states to see family, or welcoming out-of-state friends into town. Invariably, Massachusetts-related questions will arise. Let us provide some basic info: 1. That revolutionary new universal healthcare plan everyone's been hearing about all over the country, the one that is supposed to solve all our problems by placing responsibility on individuals......

It will be a busy weekend here in Boston. Many of our colleagues have the day off for Good Friday or are just looking forward to Patriots Day on Monday that has seemingly been renamed to Marathon Monday. Between the these two holidays, which don’t often coincide with each other, is Easter Sunday. Many in Boston will attend mass as usual, others will make one of their two appearances at church (the other being Christmas),......