Photo by Jay Reed; used under CC license.
We all know LEGO bricks are the best reusable toy building material in existence. So why, you may have wondered, aren’t there more holiday-themed ideas for decorating with them? What, aside from a life-size picture of Mr. Spock wearing a Santa hat (you know you’ve always wanted one), could possibly be a better geeky holiday accessory than a set of small holiday-themed LEGO builds?
Now, you could of course put together some holiday-themed builds yourself. But we’re all busy, and sometimes it’s difficult to get the right inspiration at the right time. So the folks at LEGO have come to the rescue with a series of fourteen free mini-build patterns. Eleven of them are currently available online, and the remaining three will be made available one at a time, each Thursday for the rest of the month. Each can be downloaded from the LEGO Shop website as a zipped PDF containing the same kind of step-by-step directions you’re used to seeing in LEGO sets.
Of course, you’ll still have to have the right pieces to make the builds, or else order them online or procure them at your local LEGO Store (if such exists). Or, of course, you can simply find an acceptable alternative among the pieces you have.
As someone whose family celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah, I could wish that more of the builds were generic winter-themed, as most are clearly Christmas-oriented. But that’s a fairly minor quibble. They still look like a fun project for a family to do together in preparation for the holidays.
(Please note that the photo is not related to the mini-builds described in the article.)
