The Grand Transformation

To our guests at this time of year, the Grand Transformation at Castle in the Air seems to have happened overnight. In a sense, this is true. While we do spend months out of the year planning and working behind the scenes, the final push to bring everything out for you to see is done in just one day.

We begin the morning of the day before, when friends and family gather to hang at least one thousand ornaments, create dozens of treasure mounds, and tidy every last corner. The work lasts all day, and all night. More help arrives as the hours pass, and around midnight most of the morning crew goes home to rest for a few hours before they come back to open the shop in the morning.

Those of us still standing at the first light of dawn carry on until just before opening, making sure everything is in place. When that moment comes, we realize that the Grand Transformation renews the shop on more than just a material level, and that the holiday spirit isn’t simply a marketing term.

This year we’ve broadened our sense of what the holidays mean to us. If you are a longtime visitor to Castle in the Air, you will recognize familiar objects—the cuckoo clocks from the Black Forest, our marionettes from Budapest, Czech and Polish glass ornaments, European crepe paper, a new season of clothing from C.P. Shades made in Sausalito…

But a look upwards will bring you face to face with a wonderfully fierce and friendly Chinese dragon. He watches over us and flies between giant antique silk lanterns we found in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Lately, China gets a bad rap from many people who value craftsmanship over consumerism, so it’s worthwhile to remind ourselves that every culture makes objects of lasting beauty.

Magic is everywhere. We live to share it with you.