Street advent opens up some new windows

Two Bury St Edmunds women created a neighbourhood advent calendar to help bring their community together in the run up to Christmas.

Clare Spiller and Luisa Martinez sent letters out to houses in Norfolk Road, Avenue Approach, Northgate Avenue and Fornham Road to ask them to take numbers, decorate their windows and reveal their designs when their numbers came up through December.

Clare explained: “It was Luisa’s idea really, she saw this work when she was living in Hull and mentioned it to me, so we asked around and people started to take a real interest in the idea.”

They had responses from 30 households, so Clare and Luisa gave out the numbers for one to 24, one each for the four Sundays of Advent and two signs for Christmas Day, just to make sure everyone had one.

She said: “The feedback has been lovely. People have stopped in these streets to look at them and when the idea started to take shape people were really excited to get their windows started, which was very nice.”

The project has been a big success for the pair, but Clare did not want to confirm it as an annual event just yet.

She said: “We will have to see. We plan to send out Christmas cards to thank everyone and we will see if people would like to do this again.”