This Lego-loving couple has spent the last six weeks creating this stunning Alpine ski scene out of 400,000 bricks—just in time for Christmas.
Every year, 61-year-old Mike Addis and his 56-year-old wife Catherine Weightman carefully construct a Christmas-themed Lego creation to celebrate the holiday season.
Since this year was the 25th anniversary of their first ever yuletide sculpture, they decided to take on their biggest project yet: an 8-foot-tall by 8-foot-wide snow-covered Alpine ski resort complete with working lifts, trains, and lights.
The massive Lego creation currently takes up half the living room of their English home in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.
“It’s definitely the biggest,” said Mr. Addis, a retired school teacher. “It’s a mixture of a Swiss Mountain resort, a German Christmas market, and Father Christmas’s workshop.”
The incredible structure includes a medieval town, various holiday chalets, Santa’s house and workshop, and a working train that delivers right to Santa’s workshop. It also includes elves, a reindeer and sleigh, and lots of working street lights.
“Each time you look at it you notice something new,” said Addis. “My favorite bit I think is the church—it worked really well. The town center is also a firm favorite.
“It’s hard to say exactly how many hours a day we’ve spent on it because some days I’ll spend eight or ten hours, while other days I won’t touch it at all.”
Previous festive Lego projects have included a life-size polar bear that was 8 feet (2.5 meters) tall, the Durham Cathedral, a ginger-bread house, choir boys, Father Christmas, and even their own house.
“The models are enjoyable but also take a lot of patience and can be quite frustrating sometimes,” said Addis.
“On one occasion during this build, I tripped and smashed one of the supports so we had to start that all over again. But the beauty of Lego is that it it can be rebuilt.”
Speaking of how they create their masterpieces, Addis revealed that they never use any instructions.
“We always free-build, we never have any instructions. We like to figure it out ourselves,” said Addis. “Normally we would build from the bottom up, but this time we had to do it the other way round and start building from the back forwards.
“Even the structure behind, which is hidden, was free-built.”
Every year, the couple begins their construction on the retired man’s birthday in the autumn. “On October 13th, we have a birthday party and people come round to help us start it off,” said Addis. “We always start constructing our projects on my birthday, and we aim to finish it by December 1st.
Unsure of how many Legos exactly were used, Addis estimates the number is around 400,000 from their basement collection of bricks.
“We’ve collected Legos for over 50 years, and some are from my wife’s collection too. Being a teacher, people also like to gift us some Legos too, so we’ve amassed quite a large collection.
“We have a cellar, so we store them all down there and organize them by color and size.”
When asked if the couple have already decided on next year’s project idea, Addis said they had a special procedure for the decision-making process.
“The best time for us to make a decision is when we’re coming back from holiday because the journey is often long and boring and so it’s a good time for us hammer out ideas.”
While the couple kick-start each construction with a celebration, they say it’s only right they should begin the dismantling process with a party as well.
“We’ll have a break-down party where we invite our friends over to help us and we try to do that as close to the 6th of January as possible,” said Addis. “I’d say it takes us about two to three weeks to dismantle each project.”
The couple will also be hosting an open house event for family and friends on December 21st so people can marvel at their amazing talent.
Deck The Halls Of Social Media By Sharing This Fun Story With Your Friends…