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Call it a Christmas block party. A Lego-loving couple from England continued its 27-year holiday tradition of building a massive model with this year’s blockbuster display.
Mike Addis, 64, and his wife, Catherine Weightman, 59, erected a 12-foot Lego brick wall, Christmas tree and fireplace — complete with dangling Santa legs.
“The nice thing is when people come in and don’t realize the fireplace is Lego because it’s life-size,” Addis told SWNS. “It’s so realistic.”
The yearly Christmas scenes, which span from 8 to 21 feet, dominate the lounge of the couple’s Huntingdon home. Addis and Weightman piece together an estimated 400,000 Legos for their creations, which they say take two months to assemble and two weeks to bulldoze.
They claim last year’s project was completed in a month — and they toiled up to 14 hours a day. The 21-foot Lego replica of the old London Bridge included 78 houses, 500 figurines, a castle and a chapel.
“It’s quite a social thing, and it keeps us warm too,” Addis, a retired economics teacher, declared of the hobby-turned-obsession.
“You can’t believe building Lego — which doesn’t involve a lot of movement — would, but you could actually switch the heating off.”
In 2020, they crafted a 12-foot snow-dusted model of Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire. The present building dates back to 1083. The Addis display reportedly lit up from the inside to show off a magical wintry scene.
Addis says their children — who are now adults — have sold all their own Lego collections, but they still contribute when they come to visit by making Christmas Lego decorations and figurines.
“Our children helped initially, and the builds would feature on our Christmas cards. People expect us to do them now,” Addis added.
“We still enjoy doing it. It’s the satisfaction of completing something so big.”
Past designs include an 8-foot Alpine ski resort with working lifts, trains and lights; a ceiling-scraping 8-foot pyramid advent calendar with 24 windows that featured intricate scenes the size of a shoebox; a life-size polar bear; an 8-foot postal box; and an 8-foot Victorian dollhouse.
The structures stay up until January, when the couple hosts a “take-down” party with friends who have “high-pressure jobs.” The dismantling — and the wine — are deemed a soothing “stress relief,” per SWNS.
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