Hundreds of Canberra's street trees are decorated with bows this Christmas. But who put them there?

December is a nice time to drive around and soak up the sights of Canberra.

After dark, every second house will display some form of festive light, even if not everyone goes beyond a string of colour-changing LEDs and a blow-up Santa. Other setups are probably visible from space.

But even during the day, especially around the Inner South suburbs of Yarralumla, Deakin, Barton, and Griffith, there are roadside trees decked in giant red bows (and in the case of two trees along La Perouse Street in Narrabundah, clear plastic bows).

The tradition sprung from ‘Yarralumla Does Christmas’, an annual music and picnic event hosted by the Yarralumla Residents’ Association (YRA) in Weston Park prior to COVID-19.

Between 200 and 300 people would attend, coaxed by bubble-blowing and face-painting for the kids, a stall run by the Finnish Embassy for penning letters to Santa, and all manner of other performances.

A number of trees around the main stage would also be studded with big red bows.

The YRA then began dressing the trees at the entrances to Yarralumla, at the local shops and around Novar Street.

Residents did the rest, to the point local fabric shops often sell out of red lengths around this time of year and more than 600 street trees across the Inner South sport coloured bows between November and January.

“I don’t know that any other residents’ associations have taken it up since then; it’s largely individuals who thought it was a good idea,” former president Mike Lewis says.

“At one stage, we cleared out Lincraft’s entire stock.”

In 2020, the association convinced the then Governor-General David Hurley and his wife Linda Hurley to get in on the action by decorating all the trees along Dunrossil Drive, down to the front gates and even extending to some of the trees within the walls.

“That was pretty spectacular.”

Visitors to this year’s ‘Yarralumla Does Christmas’ event on 30 November were invited to “follow the red bows to find us”, so there’s a navigational use to them too.

Many of the bows are sourced from local fabric shops like Lincraft or Spotlight, but some residents also order them online and then sell them at the Yarralumla shops in the lead-up to Christmas – along with instructions on how to tie them.

The demand was so massive in 2023, however, the cupboard was bare by this time last year.

There was no plan to conquer the entirety of the ACT with them, but Mike says the bows are spreading as neighbours get FOMO.

“I don’t think there’s anything organised. When one neighbour puts them up, others say: ‘Oh, gosh, I should do something about it too’. Certainly, when one or two people start putting them up in late November/early December, it triggers a tsunami of red bows.”

He says there has been the “odd report of people stealing them” but, generally, “everyone is really positive about it”.

“It really does engender the Christmas spirit.”

Many residents are worried, however, about what the ACT Government’s push for greater housing density in the suburbs will mean for the future of Yarralumla. Walter Burley Griffin always wanted a ‘Garden City’ feel to Canberra, and wide, tree-lined boulevards were a key part of that.

“It’s a great suburb – like a little village,” Mike says.

He’s particularly concerned about proposed plans for the heritage-listed former CSIRO School of Forestry site, destined to be redeveloped into a mixed-use residential precinct with apartment buildings of up to three storeys, an aged-care facility and boutique hotel.

“It will change the nature of the place, as well as adding to traffic.”

And will there be fewer trees to pin bows to?

“Maybe. It’s always a risk.”

The original version of this article was first published on Riotact in December 2023.