Hyde Park Group Selling Limited Edition Tom Menino Christmas Ornaments

Photo courtesy of Hyde Park Main Streets

What do you get for the Boston politico who simply has it all? Why, a Tom Menino Christmas tree ornament, of course.

For the last eight years, Hyde Park Main Streets has sold Christmas ornaments celebrating a different neighborhood landmark, from French’s Opera House to the Neponset River, as a means of fostering a sense of pride in the community. For the first time, this year’s ornament will commemorate a person rather than a place, and who better than Boston’s longest-serving mayor, who called Hyde Park home.

“I think this is a nice way for people to bring him into their homes, and reflect about what he did,” executive director Emily Patrick tells Boston magazine. Menino died at age 71 last year after being diagnosed with advanced cancer.

The ornaments—produced by Lincoln, Rhode Island-based ChemArt, the makers of the White House Historical Society’s ornaments—feature the five-term mayor standing with his trademark baseball bat cane on the banks of the Charles River, flanked by the Boston skyline. Hyde Park Main Streets ordered roughly 200 for the holiday season, and they’re already in hot demand following a debut at the Anderson Tree Lighting Festival, according to Patrick.

“We ordred a few extra this year, kind of anticipating that it would be a bigger draw, and so far, the reception has met our expections. We’re really happy that people seem to like it so much,” Patrick says. “It really does speak to his legacy. Being in office for 20 years and giving all he gave back to the Hyde Park community truly impacted generations of Bostonians, and everybody I come in contact with has a story or an anecdote about him.”

Priced at $18 each, the ornaments available at four Hyde Park small businesses: Bean & Cream, Essence of Thyme, Pure Joy Flowers, and Essence of Thyme, as well as the Main Streets offices at 11 Fairmount Avenue.

Patrick said she hasn’t received any interest from Mayor Marty Walsh’s office yet, but would love to include him in the tradition: “We would certainly send a few over there. We did send a few to Mrs. Menino.”

[h/t Boston Bulletin]