This story was first published on December 20, 2018 by WBUR 90.9FM, Boston’s NPR News Station. WBUR and the Reporter have a partnership in which the two news organziations share resources and content.Listen to this story here.
Dannie Kelly is a real-life Santa Claus of the city — a deliverer of Christmas trees and holiday cheer in the heart of Dorchester’s Four Corners neighborhood. His tree lot is a shining offering in a community without a lot of other holiday decorations — with big trees leaned against a brick wall, a 7-foot candy cane in lights, and a large, jovial man at the center of it all, hawking trees and spreading good cheer.
Kelly, an ordained Baptist minister, lives in Mattapan, and has been selling Christmas trees in Boston for three decades. Buy a tree from Kelly, and you’re in for more than an evergreen. It’s an experience that makes some customers giddy…