It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

I live in a very charming neighborhood, and the (mostly) very charming shops on Charles Street, our main thoroughfare/shopping drag tend, to put out charming decorations for the holidays. Tasteful (mostly), too.

It reminds me of those charming and tasteful little towns that the charming and tasteful folks in the charming and tasteful Hallmark and Lifetime holiday movies fall in love with an in. You know these movies: complete and utter, too cutesy, totally unrealistic, romantic pap, in which the lovely (charming and tasteful) young single gal realizes that the place where the charming and tasteful man of her dreams is going to fall head over heels with her can only be in the small town (sometimes a suburb, but well removed from any urban taint) where she grew up. Awwwww. 

The towns, of course, are fake AF.

But Charles Street, even though it's in a large, tainted city - the sort of place where, if you believe in Hallmark, no one can ever find true happiness - is not fake AF. It's a very real place, and people actually live here. We even have - get this! - a drugstore that's not a CVS! And a donut shop that's just around the corner that - get this! - is not a Dunk's.

Anyway, I took a stroll through the hood the other day and took a few snaps of some of the charming and tasteful (mostly) storefronts.

Here's the nice little boutique hotel at the corner. I like the jaunty cap on the sign. 

And here's a couple of nice (charming, tasteful) little card and gift shops:

The shop below is for skincare and related (e.g., eyelash) services. Not sure about the purple fake tree with turquoise and silver bulbs. Don't seem to match all that well with the red Merry Christmas. But, hey, I'm in the holiday spirit: you do you!

This sandwich shop opened a month or two ago. Their windows are charming and tasteful, and their muffaleta sandwich is pretty tasty.

This shop is the ultimate in good taste minimalism. I've never been in. They sell jewelry and objets. I think they used to sell doorknobs, too. But that might have been a shop ago.

The wife of the owner of our wonderful hardware store, Charles Supply, is an artist, and I'm not doing her latest window much justice here. Trust me. Her windows are always wonderful and fun. 

This is a disappointing picture of the window at Blackstone's my favorite card and gift (and kitchen) shop on Charles. I've been shopping there for decades, and through three (that I can think of) owners. All wonderful. And through it all, it's always been Blackstone's. Love this place!

More tastefulness! More charm! From a couple of places that sell charming and tasteful stuff. Just not to me.

This is a new toy store - of course our charming and tasteful neighborhood has a toy store - where your kiddo can post a letter to Santa at the North Pole. And of course we also have a charming and tasteful shop that sells dog paraphernalia. Just not dogs. 

And why I can't line those two pics up the same way I did for the two stuff shops is beyond me.

Even the drycleaner gets into the act, in their own modest little way. Just not my drycleaner. 

One of the weirdest shops on Charles is a chacuterie that recently opened. "Boston's first quick service chacuterie store!" Likely its first and only. Seriously, just how much demand is there for quick service chacuterie? I would prefer to have the nut store that used to be here back. (Fortunately, I can still get Fastacchi nuts online. But it's just not the same as popping in for a house gift. Or something to put out for guests. Or something to just plain gorge on.)

There are a couple of shops on Charles that cater to trendy twenty-somethings, and this is one of them. Looks like pink is the thing. But that hot pink fake tree that looks like it was airlifted from the 1950's? No thanks. But I'm not the customer they're after, so I'll just let it be.

But in truth, I prefer my Christmas colors traditional. If God wanted us to have pink Christmas trees, he'd have given us pink Christmas trees. I'm also not wild about this heavy bronze and green swag below. What's wrong with green with a bit of red (or blue or silver or gold) to break things up?

Across Beacon, and still - I think - technically on Charles, are the Make Way for Ducklings. They're making their way for Christmas sporting their fine little Santa caps.

You know, sometimes it really is a beautiful day in my charming and tasteful neighborhood. 

And am I bragging about my charming and tasteful neighborhood? Having grown up in Main South Worcester, you bet I am!