Thank you for voting our window in the Love Cambridge Facebook page. You may wonder why this year we have a very different display.
(Photo credit: Cambridge Bid)
As you may know, for years, every December, we always decorate our window with something bright & bold. Whilst we've always struggled to find wall space to hang all the pictures we'd love to, we do have our lovely big windows that our customers adore.
It become our space to get creative, with the help of local artists some years including Karen Jinks, Mandy Knapp & local art students.
Last year, Helen of White Cottage Bakery ran a class to show us and a few of our small business friends (Romano's, AliBalticBakes & NaomiDaviesArts) how to make festive bread wreaths. They all helped us to hang them in our lovely windows.
2020 has been a difficult and special year for everyone. Due to the social distancing in place, we couldn't get our local suppliers to come in as before to have our lovely traditional evening doing what we loved to do - decorating, followed by a social supper. Instead, this year, I found myself struggling late one night trying to decorate alone. After a two hour unsuccessful struggle to untangle the recycled Christmas lights, I sent a SOS message to my friends for some help. The first one who got back to me was Naomi who had the lovely idea of keeping it simple with just our green plants (from Janet of Small & Green) , simple lights, and baubles written with wishes of hope and joy. This seemed just right for this year, so we asked our customers and followers on social media to tell us their wishes and hopes. Every wish was written on a wooden bauble and hung from lights in the window.
We are delighted to say that since hanging our first bauble on 1st December, we have received more than 100 messages (at time of writing) both from walk-in customers or social peeps messaging us from far and wide all over the world.
What started off as a simple idea has taken on a life of its own. It has brought us even closer to our customers, and there is a feeling of bonding over a communal hope for good things to come. A display of hope for 2021. This is something very special, and we are so pleased to have your support. We are still enjoying reading and putting up your wishes every single day. Thank you to everyone who has contributed. Please do keep your wishes coming, as we will continue to put them up all the way to Christmas.
One of our wishes has been to thank our lovely neighbours, especially St Clement's Church, who let us use their outdoor courtyard space to enable us to continue to trade when we could finally reopened in July after more than 3 months of lockdown. When we expressed our thanks during the difficult time they told us briefly & sum up a very sentimental point, "that's what community is for!"
We are so grateful to be shortlisted in this year's Festive Window Competition organised by Love Cambridge who will donate £150 to a charity chosen by the winner. Please head to Love Cambridge Facebook Page to vote for us if you love our window but we will be equally happy if you vote for any window as our local businesses all put in such an enormous effort. This year we have seen the strong sense of community which we haven't noticed before. No matter what happens tomorrow, there is always hope. Let light shine out of darkness.
Love,
Meggy, Chan & Team Bridges xx
