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Festive Streets

#ShowTheLove with green hearts in your window

Join us in supporting the Climate Coalition’s #ShowTheLove Green Hearts campaign this February. Show the Love for everything you want to protect from the climate crisis.

Our community is decorating the windows on our streets

Festive Streets 2020 was a St Albans District community project encouraging neighbours in St Albans, Harpenden and the villages to decorate the windows on their street during the 2020-21 Winter Festive Season, enabling them to celebrate as a community in a contact-free way and bring cheer to their neighbourhood. See the Main Festive Streets page for more information.

At least 60 streets took part in 2020.

Click here to read all about it in the Herts Ad article of 16th December 2020.

Below is a just a selection of the dozens of photos we were sent for Festive Streets from every corner of St Albans District by residents who took part (and also by a few keen photographers).

Thanks for reading about our Festive Streets project. Why not click here and visit our Playing Out page to find out all about how to close your road so children can play and adults can mingle (once we’re allowed to again!)

Decorate Your Window for Festive Streets

“Decorate a window”. For some people, it’s pure pleasure – an artistic joy they were born to produce. Yet, for others, it’s a hugely daunting task and they wouldn’t know where to start. If you fall into the latter category, read on!

Festive Streets is one of the Meet Your Neighbours projects from Sustainable St Albans. Visit the Meet Your Neighbours page for more street activities and ideas.

Decorate the windows on your street

Sign up for your free Festive Streets information pack each November and December. (The linked form will be live at those times.)

Get together with your neighbours in St Albans, Harpenden and villages and decorate your street’s windows during the winter months. Bring cheer to the neighbourhood and pull local residents together for an easy, fun-filled activity to do as a community. If you’d like to create a similar activity in your community, simply follow our steps below….

Photo of stockings in a window - photo credit Sustainable St Albans

Co-ordinate with your neighbours

In its simplest form, neighbours volunteer to decorate a street-facing window of their home and co-ordinate with each other to agree a timetable and a theme. Sign up to get our free information pack, available each November and December, which has template notes to neighbours.

Invite everyone to join in, including shops, classrooms or offices too

All the neighbours in a street are invited to join in with Festive Streets – whether they choose to decorate a window or simply enjoy the displays.

The Festive Street concept could equally be applied to school classroom windows, an office block or a parade of shops.

Neighbours might take it in turns to decorate windows on different days during an agreed period e.g. 2 weeks or 1 month. Smaller streets might decide to decorate their windows all on the same day.

For more detail on how to go about it, sign up to get our free information pack which is available each November and December.

Photo of Hope Is With Us window - photo credit N. Edwards
Festive Window display - Maker Sankranti

Fancy or simple is up to you: but keep it sustainable

The project is run at street level and you can decide for yourselves whether you keep it simple or go the full hog – perhaps raising money for charity or choosing a more ambitious theme.

Please use sustainable, recycled materials wherever possible and minimise energy usage, particularly on lights. If you do use lights, please avoid flashing lights as these can adversely impact some people.

For ideas and techniques, check out our blog on how to decorate your windows.

The original Festive Streets 2020

Festive Streets is a project to encourage community cohesion and positivity and was born during the Covid winter of 2020-21. It is brought to you by our Meet Your Neighbours team each winter. Click here to see our photo gallery of the 2020 winter project or visit our Instagram page to see some of the more recent winter displays.

Festive window display - stockings
Playing Out street closure credit Playing Out Bristol.

Find out more about Playing Out and the other Meet Your Neighbours projects

If you’ve enjoyed the idea of Festive Streets, you can also visit our Playing Out page to find out all about how to close your road so children can play and adults can mingle. And find more ideas on our Meet Your Neighbours page.