Behind the Scenes at The Children's Museum

We’re doing what many families are doing at home now that the holiday season is over. We’re packing up our decorations and putting them in storage. Of course, not every family has giant snowflakes and a 12 foot tall snow globe to contend with. Nor does it take the typical family 5 semi trucks to haul away their decorations (thought it may feel that way sometimes).

Back in November, Exhibit Developer Cathy Hamaker wrote a post on the process of preparing for the Jolly Days exhibit. The process for taking down the exhibit is very similar to the process of putting the exhibit up, but it only takes about a week to take it down as opposed to the two months it takes to put the exhibit together.

A majority of the work was done today while the museum was closed. We have a special lift that we use to take down all the decorations that are high in the air like the hats on the dinos outside, the tree and gifts in the Welcome Center, Bumblebee’s hat, and the snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. Museum staff will also disassemble the Yule Slide piece by piece and put it away for the year.

Most of the decorations and exhibit elements will be packed up and hauled off site for storage. Some of our objects, like Jingles and his stuffed animal friends from our Steiff collection and the objects you see on display in the windows while standing in line for photos with Santa, will go back into the museum’s collection which is stored in the lower level of the museum.