Castle Noel finds treasure trove of classic Tower City Christmas decorations in old warehouse

Castle Noel finds treasure trove of classic Tower City Christmas decorations in old warehouse

Originally Published at Cleveland.com

MEDINA, Ohio — Nobody loves Christmas like Mark and Dana Klaus. Four years ago, the couple opened Castle Noel, a year-round Christmas attraction and museum in Medina. With his white beard, Mark even looks like Santa and, yes, Klaus is his real last name.

The couple was eager and a little skeptical when they heard about a warehouse located in the shadows of Tower City in the Flats full of the mall’s old Christmas decorations. The warehouse was being emptied so it could be rented out. Everything had to go.

A relative of a friend who worked at the warehouse invited the Klaus’ on Monday to rummage through the stuff to see if there was anything worth saving.

“I was blown away,” Mark Klaus said. “When I first walked in there I saw some ribbons and some Christmas trees and thought, ‘Aw the really important stuff is gone.’

“Then I got into this room and I saw, holy cow, there’s some stuff in there and I started looking further and said, ‘Oh my gosh look at this massive balloon!'”

The couple couldn’t contain their excitement on the Facebook Live video they posted of their treasure hunt. “This is what we went down and saw every year,” Dana says with glee the moment in the video when they realize just what they had found. “This is my childhood!”