This hands-on clay workshop in Long Beach takes you into a winter wonderland

Playing with clay like it was a grown-up Play-Doh. Making an ornament. Or a menorah. Or maybe a garlic grater. Sipping eggnog or wine or La Croix… Surrounded by the glitz and glitter of holiday decorations exploding inside a clay studio. There’s no question: Clay on First’s “Wonderland Workshop” series is a definitively Long Beach experience.

Clay Wood’s longtime pottery space in Downtown Long Beach’s East Village Arts District is hosting the holiday experience starting, well, now. For $65 per person, the two-hour class invites guests into a studio room fully decked out for the holidays, with seasonal refreshments and plenty of room to follow their own creative whims.

It is another reason to get your hands dirty at a space that has steadily made crafts’n’holiday celebration part of its identity.

What to expect at Clay on First’s Wonderland Workshop

The premise is charmingly open-ended: Pick something you want to sculpt and spend a couple of hours making it. You can choose to freely explore with a ball of clay or use pre-flattened sheets to carve out of whim.

That could mean ornaments for the tree. A spoon holder for the kitchen. A garlic grater—much like those old-school, flat glass graters—for the friend who appropriately measures garlic with their heart. Or a menorah for your own holiday table. You can also follow your own adventure rather than stick to one of the suggested projects, as I did with a Mickey head ornament.

Cookies and drinks round out the experience, with eggnog, wine, and nonalcoholic options available. The holiday-covered studio provides the backdrop. And, to both you and your neighbors, your particular ambitions with a piece of clay provide the entertainment. That flexibility is also a large part of the appeal. A group of friends can sit down together and head in entirely different creative directions. One incredibly talented woman crafted a complete set of star ornaments that looked utterly gorgeous. A couple can make something for their home—like a candle holder made across the table from me. Someone with a gift list can put a little time (and a few fingerprints) into a present.

The studio lists the experience as “Wonderland Workshop” on its class page under the Adult Classes section, where guests can find the schedule and book their session.

Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and a holiday calendar built around clay

For anyone who has followed Clay on First’s seasonal transformations, the Wonderland Workshop fits into a much larger picture.

Its Halloween experience, “Clay of the Dead,” brought together sculpting, food, drinks, costumes, and an escape-room-style story. Making things became part of the adventure, with the studio leaning into the same appetite for immersive seasonal outings that has helped reshape DTLB’s holiday calendar, along with spaces like The Ordinarie and Midnight Oil.

February brings a different kind of ghost. The studio’s annual “Toast-to-Ghost” Valentine’s classes invite couples to share a pottery wheel and channel Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore’s energy from one of cinema’s most famous scenes. All with the film projected on the wall. It is playful, occasionally messy, and a particularly fitting excuse to discover how you and your partner handle a project together.

Then there was last year’s “Jingle All the Clay,” which paired a local ceramics market with hands-on holiday activities, seasonal sweets, and drinks. Visitors could support another maker’s work while trying their own hands at creating.

Across those events, the invitation is consistent: Come celebrate here. Bring someone. Make something. Escape the digital and go tangible.

A little history of Clay on First…

Clay Wood opened Clay on First in 2009, turning a lifelong interest in ceramics into a Downtown business. According to a 2024 Signal Tribune profile, his introduction came at age 12, when a sixth-grade teacher brought her own pottery wheel to class. He built a home studio as a teenager and continued taking ceramics courses while studying psychology in college. Eventually, he left a career managing high-rise buildings to open the studio.

“I just wanted to share what I was passionate about with other people,” Clay told the Tribune.

That idea remains visible in the studio’s mix of introductory classes, workshops, and space for experienced ceramicists to pursue their own work. A first-time visitor can spend an afternoon learning and, if they catch the bug, can keep going either on their own or at the studio itself. Professionals who lack a studio space can find a second home.

Even more, like many businesses across the city and especially in DTLB, keeping that space alive has taken work. Its continued presence carries the weight of a small creative business that people chose to rally around and whose owner is a constant presence at events and fundraisers across the city. And the Wonderland Workshop offers an easy way to become part of that story: Set aside two hours, grab a cookie, and see what you can make.

Either way, it’s a holiday memory in the making.

Winter Wonderland is $65 per person for a two-hour class inside Clay on First, located at 408 E. 1st St., Unit B. Find “Wonderland Workshop” and reserve through Clay on First’s class page.