Casa Santa Museum

CASA SANTA MUSEUM

One of the most famous attractions east of Metro Manila, located in the hills of Antipolo, just 30 minutes away from Ortigas is the CASA SANTA @ Jardin de Miramar.

The Casa Santa houses an internationally recognized collection of Santa Claus items ranging from life size, singing santas to Turkish inspired bronze plaques of Santa Claus. At present, it is probably the most extensive private collection of Santa Claus items in the world with over 3,005 santas. And unlike traditional museums, the Casa Santa is a fun museum in that the visitors are free to inspect the items closely, or in some cases, play with it.

Casa Santa started out as a small personal collection and it grew in size until it needed a house where the Santas could “live.” The Casa Santa was converted from a family resthouse into a museum of Santa Claus collection in 1995. The house was remodeled by folk architect Rosario Encarnacion Tan and the lighting design inside the museum was crafted by international Japanese light designer Shoko Matsumoto.

In December 2004, it was the cover of Starweek’s Christmas and in Christmas 2008 appeared in the front page of the Philippine Inquirer. It has appeared in over 50 T.V. and movie productions -- Rated K, Wish Ko Lang, Unang Hirit, Magandang Umagang Bayan, US Girls, Boy and Kris. On international television, it was covered by two news agencies, Reuters and Associated Press.

Addition to the collection is a room full of miniature Christmas villages. A starter collection in the loft was displayed in 2010. After acquiring a significant number of mini- houses this year, it was given a room of its own. The village was designed by Bamboo Tonogbanua of Bacolod, himself a Christmas village collector.

Casa Santa is a Santa Claus Museum in Antipolo. It’s located inside Jardin de Miramar compound (scroll down to see location in google map). The house where the Santa collections are displayed used to be the vacation house of business woman Ms. Edna del Rosario. She opened the house to the public so that she can share all her santa collections to the people.

I discovered this place 2 years ago around Christmas time when I saw it on a morning show. During that time I was dating my high school friend and I was thinking of a cheesy /”John Lloyd” way of giving my christmas gift to her so I rented the place.