Apartment door decorations

October 6, 2023 7:37 PM

If you currently live or have previously lived in an apartment building, especially the kind with fully interior hallways (aka double loaded corridor), do you or your neighbors put up holiday decorations? Is it just one or two units, or a majority, or somewhere in between?

My neighbors put out fake cobwebs, seasonal doormats, a cluster of fake pumpkins, a skeleton cat, etc and many did "summer" or "fall" decorations for their doors even in advance of Halloween. I suspect there's a social proof dynamic here. This is the first apartment building I've lived in that has so many residents decorating their entrances. I'm not likely to decorate our door (though I do enjoy a good wreath), but I enjoy and also am sometimes bemused by my neighbors' decorations.

posted by spamandkimchi to Society & Culture (27 answers total)

I lived in apartments in various cities for most of my adult life and it was extremely uncommon.

This is completely just a theory, but I wonder how much of this is children of the suburbs living in a city as adults who are culturally more used to elaborate holiday decorations.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:07 PM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

My grandmother lived in an extremely fancy (like the very fanciest in our city) and very old-fashioned apartment building for a very long time and I never saw her neighbors put tchochkes out on their welcome mats but then she moved into a fancy but much less exclusive transitional elder care apartment. The first time I walked through the place there were bits and bobs on every other door and I was as surprised by it as you are right now. Nana ended up choosing a few tasteful knickknacks for her entrance because she was competitive like that.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 8:19 PM on October 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

My first ever temp job I got paid to go to a rich old lady's apartment building and decorate her door/hall for Christmas.
posted by phunniemee at 8:24 PM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm now living in a house again but spent the previous seven or so years in a series of three apartments, all in those buildings where the apartments open off of a hallway. One of them had lots (like 2/3 maybe) people who decorated, one had some but not a majority (1/3 of people, maybe), and the last place virtually nobody put up any decorations at all. They all seemed about the same to me demographically, I am not sure what made them so different in terms of decorations.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:06 PM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

A lot of places have bans on having anything in the hallways or on the doors for other reasons, which tragically sweeps in holiday decorations. My mom used to decorate the heck out of our little piece of hallway back in the day.
posted by praemunire at 9:10 PM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

It’s super common here. I put up Chinese new year and Christmas things and wish I was organised enough to do more festivals. There’s a tradition of festive lights for certain Muslim festivals and it can be almost competitive with some balconies decorated elaborately. We also have a mandated period near our National Day to fly our flag, which depends on how active the local residents committee is.

I love it and enjoy seeing different traditions and variety in our communal spaces.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 9:16 PM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

Some of my neighbors have seasonal wreaths all year around and sometimes doormats as well. We only do a wreath at Christmas and keep the same doormat all the time. I will hang a small Halloween black cat ornament and Day of the Dead ornament from our doorknocker, and usually a small wooden turkey ornament at Thanksgiving. Some of my neighbors do nothing. I've never tried to tally up who does something ... my rough guess would be maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the residents??

At one point they made a stab at trying to encourage uniformity in the hallways (like everyone having the same doormat that coordinated with the hall carpet) and also in things like window coverings. They seem to have calmed down a bit in the last few years.

My mother-in-law's not inexpensive assisted living/retirement building in New Hampshire had the most hall and door decorations I've seen anywhere.
posted by gudrun at 9:19 PM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Lived in many many apartments and never did this, but I was younger and single and hardscrabble and misanthropic.
posted by vrakatar at 10:00 PM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

My husband and I lived in a building like this for a long time. Maybe 10% of the residents would put up holiday decorations on their doors. We were never part of that 10% until our daughter was about a year old; her delight in seeing, and eventually selecting, decorations for various holidays converted us thoroughly.
posted by la glaneuse at 11:15 PM on October 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

I've lived in apartments/flats in Australia and I've NEVER seen someone decorate their front door.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 12:38 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

In the buildings I lived in in Chicago and NYC I do not recall any decorations on my hall. I have no idea if the other floors had any.

When I visit one of my children in their apartment building in Brooklyn, I noticed and they confirmed a very adorable trend of only putting up kid's drawings for the appropriate holiday. Think the hand tracing turkey for Thanksgiving or a and drawn pumpkin for fall/Halloween. Essentially, the pictures that might have gone on the refrigerator are hung on the outside of the door to the hallway. My child who is childless does put up their dog's paw prints in the appropriate holiday colors. Red, white, and blue prints for 4th of July, orange and black for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, etc
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:38 AM on October 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

Most of the apartments on my floor, about 6, do seasonal wreaths. Downstairs is an apartment that goes all out for Halloween with lights and sound effects and decor.
posted by oneear at 1:32 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’ve only lived in one building like this, and it was many years ago but I don’t remember any holiday decor.

In my mother’s retirement home, the independent living apartments are dressed to the nines with displays, some seasonal, some year round. Many people even place small tables outside their doors to hold the stuff.
posted by eirias at 3:23 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Have lived in apartments and condos, and have never seen it.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:53 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I live in a condo (not what you asked) and most units put a wreath on the door. You didn't ask this either but we're required to put lights on our balconies, from early November to mid-January. The same lights, bought from the HOA, with the same timers. I think that's nuts but I go along. Otherwise the HOA will have staff put them put up and bill me.
posted by tmdonahue at 4:57 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

My building (80ish units, NYC) runs about maybe 40/60, decorations versus none. Halloween decorations are functional, because that’s the invitation for trick or treaters — no decoration, don’t ring the bell. We used to put up a Christmas wreath, but I don’t anymore because the kids are grown and I’m not all that domestic.
posted by LizardBreath at 5:45 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think whether or not there are decorations on doors can be impacted by a) whether there are kids in a given apartment, and b) how many kids are in the building overall. Also c) how long people have been in their given apartments. Also d) how much room they would have to store such things the rest of the year.

I've lived in 3 different apartment buildings in NYC for the bulk of my life; the first building was a mix of mostly-transient 20-somethings, people who were only there for a year or two before moving on. (I was a rare holdout.) no one in that building had decorations on the doors.

Then I was in a Brooklyn brownstone and stayed there a long time too - and so did most of the other residents. There were four units in that building, and in the 15 years I was there, I only saw two other people move out and let other people move in. The people on the 2nd floor had a 2-year-old when I moved in, and a year later had another baby, so fairly soon we started seeing kids' drawings posted on their door. And then another family with young kids moved in on floor 3 and did the same, and the other 2 of us started to do the occasional little decoration.

Now I'm in a different building and have been here for 3 years; there's more of a mix of with-kids and without, and there's also a mix of "transient" and "dug in". My floor is mostly "no kids" and no one on this floor has decorations up; I haven't ventured higher in the building to see what's going on up there, save for one quick trip up one flight to visit someone who has a 2-year-old now. But I have a feeling that there may be one or two tasteful decorations up there if someone has kids (probably things made of paper, because these apartments are on the small side and ain't nobody has room to store larger things year-round).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:00 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’ve always done a seasonal wreath, but ever since I upgraded my door knocker (thanks to meta filter!), the door knocker now gets a jaunty seasonal hat. (Yes you can make reindeer antlers for a horseshoe crab work!)

Same as with others, apartments with kids tend to get a little bit more decoration than those without. Apartments with balconies get holiday lights, while street facing apartments tend to get lights as well (or sometimes electric candles)

I like the effort, it’s cheerful!
posted by larthegreat at 6:30 AM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

The buildings I’ve seen that typically have a critical mass of decorators are ones with a building culture and neighbors who know each other more than the occasional hi. For example, my mom decorates her door for the grandkids of her other neighbors who visit and will stop in to say hi more often when it’s decorated.
posted by openhearted at 6:52 AM on October 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

My kids both live in Chicago in apartments that meet your criteria. My son lives in a high-rise and on his floor at least, more doors are decorated than not. My daughter lives in a building with one apartment per floor. She lives on the third floor of four and she and her partner decorate but I haven't seen decor on floors one and two, and haven't been to floor four.

When I lived in apartments like this in the 1990s, decor was more common than not.
posted by cooker girl at 7:06 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Lived in a 42 unit apt. building in upper Manhatten in the 80s and 90s. Not the best neighborhood but not the worst...Elderly residents and a few youngish creatives. A nice mix...But I don't recall anyone putting up any decorations...Maybe a pumpkin outside the front door... guaranteed to be smashed the next morning.
posted by Czjewel at 7:30 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've lived in a few apartment buildings, and agree that the ones where people decorate their doors are also the ones where there's a community feeling (maybe it has a free box, or a bulletin board, or just people who happen to be roughly the same age).
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:00 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Lived in the deep core of the city and only saw maybe 1-2 scattered decorations here and there in a huge high-rise community. However, out in the suburbs, decorations are more common, I'd say, based on various SM postings.
posted by dubious_dude at 9:05 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

My building in NYC (call it 60 units, but some have been combined over the years) really doesn't decorate that I'm aware of (though we don't have those long endless hallways). There's an elderly man on the ground floor who has lots of things taped up (his door is set back a bit, so there's a tiny entranceway)--think faculty office doors that accumulate things over the years. One thing that is notable in comparison to other places I've lived is that there are a good fraction of apartments with nameplates on the doors. (Of course, how many are leftovers, I don't know. I occasionally have to explain I'm not the Cohen family.)

We do have a back courtyard that turns into a small village for Sukkot, though, and remains basically unused except as a staging ground for the super the rest of the year.
posted by hoyland at 10:53 AM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I live in an apartment building with a fairly strong sense of community but very few people have decorations on their doors. I thought it was a fire code violation to have decorations in the hallway, but can't think of why I have come to believe that. My building is a mix of older people who have lived here for 10+ years and younger people who have just moved in within the past 2 yrs and it's the older people who are more likely to have something on their doors. I personally can't be bothered to decorate the inside of my apartment for anything other than Hallowe'en or Christmas and don't like decorations in my line of sight as a general rule, so I've never really considered decorating my door.

In high school, I decorated my lockers and when I lived in a dorm, I decorated the door. I dunno ... I think at some point, I just got "old" and stopped showcasing parts of my personality to the community around me.
posted by Ceridwen at 4:20 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

My last medium size apartment building in San Francisco had maybe 1/4 of doors decorated. My downstairs neighbors had a skeleton they dressed up in seasonal outfits. That building was all one bedrooms and studios, so few to no kids. My medium size building in Queens, I feel like had fewer decorations, maybe due to a more diverse population who had fewer holidays in common. Interestingly, in both buildings management would decorate the lobby for Christmas (with obligatory corner menorah). I never decorated, I guess due to being a transient single adult.
posted by umwelt at 10:23 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Here in Finland it is pretty rare, maybe 10% apartment doors have something. It is against the law, for fire safety I think, but I wonder how much a couple of wreaths are really making a difference if there is a fire..
posted by fridgebuzz at 12:28 PM on October 8, 2023