Deck the stairs !

One thing I love about our building is that our neighbours across the landing are very committed to making it look nice. Which makes sense as the building has been in their family for several generations. They used to run the shops downstairs (expensive lingerie and clothes on one side and a very large "everything home related, oh and lots of old-fashioned cleaning things, random food such as organic pizza dough and a few souvenirs of Munster for good measure" type shop on the other side), which are now run by their two daughters (one of them is our landlady). Anyway, it sounds complicated but it's actually very simple: this building is very important to the family and therefore, the communal areas get nicely decorated for Christmas every year!

 Above is my slightly ridiculous contribution...

...and all this is theirs!

 
Of course it inspired me to get our good old decorations out of their box and put them up around the house. Long-time readers will recognise most of them but there are some new additions:

This cute little star is made of porcelain and was a present from Snug in Hebden Bridge.

Repurposing string lights from your wedding decor to disguise your rubber tree for the season #queenofmultipurposing I love this pic because the lit-up window you can see across the street is the living room of some nice friends we've made here over the last year. Sadly they'll be moving soon (only 5 minutes away, but still!), but we've enjoyed waving at each other lots and inviting each other over for drinks and all the local gossip.

I've had this set of repositionnable window stickers for years but never used them as I thought they might be a pain to put up (spoiler alert: they were). They look just perfect here though. I might even leave them up all year!

And here come the classics... gingerbread girl and a display of boozy baubles.

And a rabbit, naturally. 

Well, that's it from me for 2016, unless I manage to squeeze in a post about our recent tour of Basel and its magical Christmas market within the next couple of days! In the meantime, please remember to sit back, relax and enjoy the fact that the days will be getting longer and longer for the next six months. Yay!

Wishing you peace, joy and fuzziness all around!