Through My Lens -- Castle Noel

Mr. Jingaling

Frosty from Christmas With The Kranks

Cindy Lou's bedroom

The Grinch's dog Max

Castle Noel -- The Streets of New York

Mark Klaus and his wife Dana have made several trips to New York to secure quite a collection of window displays from stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord and Taylors. In one room set up like a small theater, we watched a movie that showed the tremendous effort it took to box everything and load it into a truck to bring it to Ohio.


I found out later that Klaus had even made a trip when he had to travel prone in a vehicle because of some physical problems he was having. He was determined though to add to his collection. His love of Christmas and wanting to share the memories knows no bounds, I guess.


The series of windows that feature the story of the Nutcracker are amazing. The costuming and details of the characters and the setting are beyond description. Other windows included a fancy glittered shoes display and several deliciously displayed cakes, cookies and candies.


We were gathered into another theater venue and watched a crazy video of Klaus lip syncing "Let It Go" from the frozen movie as he was pictured in many of the places in the museum we had visited. At one point, it snowed in the theater to the delight of young and old--especially since it wasn't cold and it melted quickly.


One of the other amazing places we were led through was a large room where many of the things not yet put into displays were stored including, to my delight, the toy soldiers featured in the Santa Clause 2 movie.


Nearing the two hour mark in our tour, we paused before two huge doors and were told on the other side was the Grand Hall. With a little fanfare, the doors opened automatically and we were ushered into a wondrous huge hall that featured many of the things from the How The Grinch Stole Christmas movie.





The climax of our tour was Santa's mountain at the end of the hall. It was recreated by Klaus from the A Christmas Story movie. And yes, the slide was included. Santa waved to us from the top and we were all separated into families or groups to climb the stairs for a picture with Santa and then to take a trip down the slide. I made my husband and son go first because I knew I would need help getting up after the trip.




I took off my jacket (none are allowed on the slide to avoid metal scratching the sides) and placed it along with my purse between my feet that were tucked into the pocket of the  felt sack that I sat on. With a little scoot, I took off down the slide, screaming all the way. It was a thrill and yes, I felt like a kid again even when they helped me to my feet.



Pictures were available to purchase on our way out from our slide experience. Thankfully, no one bought the one with my mouth wide open as I sped down the red slide.


We explored the gift shop a bit and walked out into a beautiful fall day, feeling good about our trip back through Christmas past and looking forward to Christmas present.

 [For tickets and information go to the Castle Noel website]

Touring Castle Noel -- Oh The Nostalgia

Our tour of Castle Noel in Medina, Ohio, continued inside after our visit with Cousin Eddie's RV from Christmas Vacation. Our group of twelve squeezed into a small two story foyer area and looked up at a giant clock that displayed animals as it chimed.


We lingered a bit in a long hallway lined with autographed pictures of stars from Christmas movies and artists who performed Christmas music. Once through the hallway, we began to experience the magic of seeing some of the sets used in animated Christmas movies and a few window displays from NYC.


Then it was time to go through the vortex. As the story went, once we passed through the vortex we would be children again, returning to the age of ten. There were two kids with our group and the young boy turned to his mom and said, "But Mom, I'm ten now. What's going to happen to me?"


I'm not sure how his mom explained it but once we had navigated the spinning environment, holding tight to the rails because the tunnel that was spinning put your equilibrium off, he was still ten years old. The rest of us however were transported back to our childhood or at least to remembering the toys we'd given our kids.

Several showcases exhibited all sorts of toys mostly from the sixties and seventies. One showcase held the track for Hot Wheels cars that is exactly like the one (of three) that we have in our toy closet for the grandkids. It was the favorite of the son who was with us. I wondered if he felt ten or just felt old looking at his favorite toy in a museum.


We moved on to see several showcases with costumes from some of the famous Christmas movies. I recognized the robe worn by the ghost of Christmas present and of course the costume worn by Buddy the Elf. I didn't know that there was another costume worn by Buddy though. There was a purple outfit that was worn in a scene that was cut from the movie.


Eventually we came to an area known as the Santa training ground. It looked a bit like being under an over-decorated Christmas tree but in the center of the passageway were two stone walls made to look a bit like a chimney might if cut in half and the middle of it was padded with inflatable red cushions that made it a tight squeeze to get through--like the feeling Santa might have going down the chimney.


Well trained, we were now on our way to the streets of New York to view the Christmas display windows.

Castle Noel - Oh, The Christmas Movie Memorabilia!

It was a nice sunny half hour drive to Medina to our destination, Castle Noel For the last several years I had heard about the museum dedicated to Christmas memorabilia from movies and New York City's famous windows.

Along with our son who was visiting for Thanksgiving, we arrived about ten minutes before our appointed time for the tickets we had purchased ahead of time. We were checked in and signed a disclaimer because there were steps to manage and of course, a trip down an infamous Santa slide. After waiting a few minutes for others in our time slot to arrive, we were led into the first room and given some history of the museum.

Mark Klaus, a nationally renowned artist and sculptor, and his wife Dana have spent quite a bit of time accumulating enough artifacts to fill the museum that covers half a city block. In an article I read, Klaus attributed his interest in all things Christmas to his mother and father, who resembled Clark Griswold in his fervor to decorate at the holidays.

Klaus' talent for sculpting can be seen in the work that is displayed for sale in the gift shop. The Christmas ornaments and figurines he has there are intricately designed. He was commissioned to design the official ornament for the Times Square Millennium Celebration.

By 2002 his reputation allowed him access to those who held the artifacts he was interested in collecting and he began to acquire Christmas movie props and costumes. In 2013, his museum dream was realized as the doors opened to the wonder and delight of the visitors who have come to see his collection and, as the adults are promised, become kids again. Our golden tickets were marked "Youth" because we would feel like a kid again once we were done with the tour.

Once we had learned a little about how the museum came to be from Dana, Klaus' wife, she led us outdoors to one of the best props we had waited to see, Cousin Eddie's RV from the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation movie starring Chevy Chase. We took the appropriate picture and learned that the RV was actually made of aluminum and fiber glass and the rust on the outside was actually painted on. Thankfully Snots, the dog, was nowhere to be seen and we didn't have to rub his belly.

We followed Dana, our guide, into the next building and another tour guide took over, What awaited us would amaze us on every turn we took.