winter village

The Day-After-Thanksgiving Legostravaganza!!!

The day after Thanksgiving is always a fun day in the Markel house, starting with pie for breakfast, and continuing on through the day with TV-watching, leftovers-eating, and turkey soup for dinner. But the highlight of the day is always the building of the new Lego Winter Village set for the year. Everyone gets to join in the fun!

This year, we had a few small sets: a town square and a train ride, plus a nutcracker.

And the big set…the Winter Village Station, to go with the train we assembled last year! I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to build the bus, because it reminds me of the Columbia Inn’s taxi in White Christmas! I especially love the presets in the rooftop carrier.

The station itself is also pretty cool…there’s a lot of nice little details, including a coffee shop inside!

The station joined the train under the tree in our living room, and I love the way it adds to our wintry scene of happy travelers!

The Lego Winter Holiday Train

Thanks to the great sink fiasco of 2016, we were a day late building our Lego Christmas set for the year, but this evening, we sat down and got it done.

Each member of our family had a specific task:

In addition to the train itself, there were five new minifigs and a whole bunch of Lego toys and Christmas presents, which were built by Bunny and Chickadee:

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Ryan started with the engine:

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And Moose built the coal car:

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Turkey took car of the toy car, which also includes a cool revolving Christmas tree:

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And I built the passenger car/caboose:

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The track just fits around the base of our living room Christmas tree, and the gingerbread house that Ladybug built is the perfect complement to the set:

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This is the first Christmas set that we’ve built that isn’t a part of our winter village display, but I love having a train around our tree! And if we want to in the future, we can add Lego Power Functions to it, so that it can actually go!

The Lego Winter Toy Shop

One of my favorite things about the day after Thanksgiving is sitting down to build our new Christmas Lego set. This year, Lego re-released a set we had previously missed out on…the toy shop. I was very glad to have a second chance to add this to our village!

Each member of the family had a job to do, although Chickadee’s was largely supervisory:

In addition to the shop itself (which has some great details, including a highly prized light brick), the set came with a village Christmas tree, another bench, and some fun minifigs (including a pair of carolers). We also got to build the two free-with-purchase sets from this year…a Christmas train and a gingerbread house:

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Next year, we’ll have to relocate our village…there is officially no more room on this shelf!

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This tradition is a fun way to kick off our family’s Christmas celebrations every year!

The Winter Village Cottage

Yesterday, we continued the tradition we started last year on the day after Thanksgiving of building a new part of our Lego winter village. This time around, we built the cottage, a Christmas gift that I received last year, and saved just for this occasion. The children started off with the snowplow and smaller buildings (an igloo and wood chopping workshop), and Ladybug worked on one of the bonus sets we received with purchase at the Lego VIP event last weekend (a cute skating scene).

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A few weeks ago, Turkey and I worked on modifying the other bonus set we had received. It was supposed to be an elf workshop, but we turned it into a gift stand to go with the other booths in last year’s Christmas market. I love how it turned out!

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Ryan and I built the house. It was very fun, if not a little frustrating after getting used to the modular method of building…it includes a light-up brick to make the fireplace glow, and an adorable Lego Christmas tree.

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Even though we’ve only built two sets, our winter village is a full, busy place. I love this new tradition!

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The Lego Christmas Market

Instead of braving the crowds and shopping today, we spent the day at home, working on our Lego Christmas Market. It was a far superior way to spend our day…all the fun of putting together a puzzle, but far easier to display and much more enjoyable to play with, and not a manic shopper in sight!

There were enough stalls that each child got to build one…if Chickadee had been big enough, there would have even been one for her! Since she’s not ready for Lego bricks, I helped her out. (Ryan and I also got to build the carousel.)

We also had the two holiday exclusive with purchase sets…they go perfectly with the Market!

This is going to make a nice Christmas decoration in our schoolroom!P1330530