Early every December, the village of Stockbridge in western Massachusetts decks itself out in Christmas lights and does its best to look the way it did in 1967. 1967? Why not 1773, when the Red Lion Inn began serving food and drink to travelers on the road from Boston to Albany? Or 1866, when the town cheered native son Cyrus Field’s successful laying of the transatlantic cable? Stockbridge celebrates 1967 because that’s the year Norman Rockwell finished his painting, Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas.

Credit: The Norman Rockwell Museum
Credit: Stockbridge Chamber of Commerce