A Night of Miniature Marvels

In the midst of all the wrapping paper and visitors and the flurry of everything else that happens around the holidays, all of us at the shop take one evening each December to share a nice meal and have our annual ornament swap, white elephant style with numbers drawn from a hat and rambunctious trading. Here are some pictures of half a dozen treasures from the big night. I took these photos at home of the ones Duncan and I took to the dinner, and of the ones our family brought home. The ones we didn't capture were just as whimsical and fun.

The mother and child ornament at the top was my contribution to the evening, a combination of felting and other fiber arts with some doll faces and hands. Julie brought us an adorable cotton batting bird this year. The little peep has a baguette under her wing because she's heading to Paris next year!




Shari felted a sweet star ornament, and as luck would have it, my younger daughter opened it, much to both her and Shari's delight.







John's candy box ship, finished with crepe paper and Dresden trim and flying an iridescent sail, was the first ornament to be opened. It was also at the center of the final surprise of the evening when my older daughter nabbed it after nearly an hour of patient and polite plotting!

Mr. Marsh added to the pile a handmade (and fully loaded) bill holder that could come in handy on a rainy day, and Duncan was glad to take it home.

As for Duncan's gift to us, he brought a precious miniature tea house made of balsa wood and topped with a fresh layer of mica snow. Inside the house an electric tea light flickered, enchanting everyone so much with its cozy glow that this ornament was one of the most actively swapped all night.

Do you see what I see?

As you might have guessed, this week is the shop's busiest time of year. We get so many visitors coming through the door, each person looking for something special. Some people who only come around this time of year think we're only a holiday shop! The air is full of glitter, gleeful shouts of children, oohs and ahs from victorious treasure seekers, and the grumbles of those who have run out of holiday spirit.

A big part of keeping one's sanity at this time of year is knowing where to look, and what you're looking for. This is true when looking for holiday gifts, but it's also a good rule to follow in life in general. So when the clouds over Berkeley gave Fourth Street a little sprinkle this afternoon, we stood with our backs to the sun and took this picture to best remember the day.

Marvelous Marolin

You may be surprised to learn that, among all the glitz of the season, one of our most beloved collections at Castle in the Air is the beautiful and understated work of the Marolin company. This family business has been making the finest paper mache sculpture -- including this exquisite nativity scene -- for over 100 years in Germany. Their pieces have been part of Castle in the Air since the store opened.

Our visitors always notice the Marolin nativity scene in December, of course, but throughout the year we also display the company's fairy tale characters and other historical figures (we currently have Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Little Red Riding Hood, and Adam and Eve, among others), and our teachers often incorporate Marolin doll parts into their classes. In fact, Marolin brought the parts shown here out of retirement exclusively for Castle in the Air. Our store is he only place to find them. We loved these expressive faces and sweet little arms so much from the moment we saw them, that there was no way we would let them vanish into memory like so many other lost treasures.

When Black Friday Comes...

The store and all of Fourth Street is teeming with humanity today, the day with so many names -- The Official Start of Holiday Shopping, Buy Nothing Day, Buy Everything Day, and Black Friday (both because the of the maddening hordes of shoppers and because this is the day that many stores go "into the black," beginning to make profit for the first time all year).

It's on the busy busy days like this that it's easy to forget that life exists outside our little world. But just a few days ago a nice woman came in and dropped off the postcard pictured above. She's helping to organize a crafts fair for the Pastures Preschool in Bodega, California, on December 4, and she made the fair's announcement card using crepe paper and Dresden from Castle in the Air, photocopying her work onto cardstock. It's always such a treat to see what people make from our materials. Have fun at the fair!

Revealed!

Huzzah and Hooray! The Grand Transformation is complete and the Winter Wonderland is revealed! We burned the midnight oil, as well as a bit of dawn oil, putting the finishing touches on two floors of holiday ornaments, decorations, and treats. The gnomes were especially helpful, probably because we didn't have our fairy-hunting exhibit this year. And even though they don't have much use for metal pins, I hereby award our resident brownies the fairyland equivalent of the Blue Castle Badge for all their hard work throughout the year keeping our shelves tidy and labeled, with everything in its place. Organization pays off -- it helped us create our Wonderland that much quicker this year!



Castle in the Air has been through the Grand Transformation nine years in a row, and I've got to say that this year's holiday display is the most amazing one yet. We have so many new wonders to share with you, and for the first time ever, two floors for you to explore as you get ready for your holidays.

Holiday Haps on Fourth

Castle in the Air isn't the only place on Fourth Street to undergo a Grand Transformation for the holidays. In fact, the street itself turns into a winter wonderland with activities, treats, and visits from Santa. We'll be posting notices for the different happenings as they draw near. Here are a few starting this weekend.










Extended Shopping Hours
Beginning Monday the 21st, many shops will begin staying open until 7:00 pm to give you a chance to enjoy Fourth Street into the evening.

Holiday Street Lights
Beginning this Friday at dusk, Fourth Street will be aglow with thousands and thousands of colored lights. It seems the display gets bigger every year, and it turns the street into an even grander place for an evening stroll.

Free Cocoa and Hot Cider at Chocolatier Blue Patisserie
Just a few doors south of Castle in the Air (at 1809A Fourth Street), Chocolatier Blue Patisserie is one of the newest additions to the neighborhood. We're often stopping by for their scrumptious chocolates and tarts. Also starting this Friday, you can visit them between 4:30 and 7:00 each Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening to enjoy live music and a complimentary hot cider or cocoa.

Rubber Stamping Wood Grain

Up in the classroom at Castle in the Air, John McRae's been busy constructing a truly marvelous seasonal surprise. You'll have to wait just a few more days before we show you John's invention, but in the meantime, here's a look at an interesting part of its construction.

John is a true blue do-it-yourselfer, so when he needed some planks with gnarly grain for a detail on the project, he decided to make them himself. He applied a coat of brown acrylic paint to a smooth board, then immediately went to work with his wood grain rubber stamp. Here's a video where John shows us how it's done. He says the secret is in rocking the curved stamp back and forth as he glides it along the board. Enjoy!

Divine Lines

John McRae has been scouring his treasure trove, and today he brought in what he might call a "hank" of vintage postcards for us to see. He found a lot of great holiday cards that we'll be reproducing for the season. (It's only a few weeks until the holiday shopping begins, but of course we've been thinking about it and working behind the curtain for quite some time already!)

Here's a more everyday card about fortune-telling, a popular pastime at this time of year. Click on the picture to get a better peek at the prophecies. Looking at your own palm, can you divine what sort of lover you are?

Hello Hedgehogs!

There was a great hubbub around the gnome stump today, and when we went to see what was going on, we found that instead of just the two Steiff hedgehog residents at the stump--Mr. and Mrs. H.--there were four! Annalou and Russell arrived this morning by train. They had stayed behind in Germany while Bradshaw and Mrs. Hedgehog immigrated and got things arranged for their children. Now they're all reunited and they look so happy together. Mrs. Hedgehog gave the kids' faces a good scrubbing and straightened their clothes before we could take this photograph--she's very particular.

This could be the night!

A few of us stayed late at the store last night, and as we locked up we could have sworn that we heard some scuttling and giggling inside the shop. If our recollections of holiday seasons past serve us well, we figure that tonight is the night the gnomes emerge to transform Castle in the Air into a holiday spectacle!