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Couple Spent Six Weeks Creating Festive Lego Display With 400,000 Bricks

Couple Spent Six Weeks Creating Festive Lego Display With 400,000 Bricks

Mike and Christine do it every year, but as 2019 marks the 25th anniversary of their project, they've gone for their 'biggest' display ever

Jess Hardiman

Jess Hardiman

A Lego-loving couple have spent six weeks creating an ambitious Alpine ski scene for a Christmas display in their home, and it's nothing short of absolutely incredible.

Each year, Mike Addis, 61, and wife Catherine Weightman, 56, carefully construct a festive Lego scene to mark the arrival of the holidays.

However, this year they decided to go all out to mark the 25th anniversary of the project by putting together their biggest display yet.

The almost-floor-to-ceiling creation is 8ft tall by 8ft wide, and takes up half of their living room in Huntington, Cambridgeshire.

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As well as being ginormous, the Alpine ski resort is also stunning - and even comes complete with working lifts, train and lights.

Mike, a retired school teacher, said: "The is definitely the biggest project so far, we've never had one both tall and wide.

"It's a mixture of a Swiss Mountain resort, a German Christmas market, and Father Christmas' workshop.

"It's not necessarily the most complex one we've made but it's definitely the biggest."

He added: "It takes up half the living room, which is the limit of the room really because of the settee.

"We take out other bits of furniture to make space, but the settee we can't move because it's a constant piece and so that dictates how big we can go."

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The Lego masterpiece depicts a German medieval town, holiday chalets, Santa's house and workshop and even a working train, along with elves, reindeer and sleigh and several working street lights.

"Each time you look at it you notice something new," Mike said.

"My favourite bit I think is the church - it worked really well.

"The town centre is also a firm favourite.

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"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.

"I'd say on average around four hours per day is fair."

Mike and Christine's previous projects have included a life-size 8ft tall polar bear, Durham Cathedral, a gingerbread house, choir boys, Father Christmas and even their own home.

One of their previous creations.
SWNS
SWNS
SWNS

Mike continued: "The models are enjoyable but also take a lot of patience and can be quite frustrating sometimes.

"On one occasion during this build I tripped and smashed one the supports so we had to start that all over again.

"But the beauty of Lego is that it it can be rebuilt, even if it can be annoying at times."

Mike explained that he and his wife prefer to 'free-build' their work rather than using instructions.

He said: "We like to figure it out ourselves.

"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."

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Construction begins each year on Mike's birthday, kicking things off with a party.

Mike said: "On October 13th, we have a birthday party and people come round to help us start it off.

"We always start constructing our projects on my birthday, and we aim to finish it by December 1st.

"However because this year I'm retired, we finished a little bit earlier on November 25th."

They're not sure exactly how many Lego bricks were used, but Mike estimated the number is around 400,000, with approximately 500 mini figurines of elves and people.

"We've collected Legos for over 50 years, and some are from my wife's collection too," he said.

"Being a teacher people also like to gift us some Legos too, so we've amassed quite a large collection.

"We also have a cellar so we store them all down there and organise them by colour and size."

Asked whether he and Christine had already decided on next year's project, Mike said: "People always ask us if we've decided on what we're doing for next year, and the kids often used to try use it to distract me in class, but while we have ideas, we find that, come a year later, we've changed our minds.

"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."

Mike, who has become known as the 'Lego Man' said that people come from 'far and wide' to marvel at their creations, with a drop-in session for family and friends pencilled in for 21 December.

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When it's time to take it all down, Mike and Christine are faced with a fairly lengthy process, as it takes around two-to-three weeks to dismantle.

But as the couple always start the project with a party, they like to do the same to end things, too - and rope their friends in to help.

"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," Mike said.

As for what Lego thinks of all their hard work? Not much, it seems.

Mike added: "We've gotten involved in building models for other people including museums, and we've done shop displays for charity shops.

"I think we had a letter from Lego once, but it was very generic and unimpressive."

Featured Image Credit: SWNS

Topics: Christmas, uk news, News, Lego