A few years ago and strangely I don’t have any photos of the event, I built a winter scene from LEGO for Christmas. I’m guessing it could have been around 2017 but as I rely on my photos to fill in the gaps of my memory, it is only a guess !
Last year, or technically the year before, (2023) Sue and I had built a number of wintery models.
We started with the Alpine Lodge and added the Main Street complete with trolley bus.
We wanted to display them together so knocked up a small village adding a few smaller cameos.
Having to train track for the trolley (tram) to run on, I had to borrow a few lengths from one of my grandsons.
Nearer Christmas we acquired Santa’s Visit which was tagged on.
The complete diorama stood until the middle of January before being carefully packed away for the 2024 Winter village.
It was about this time, that I discovered the Lego Winter Village facebook page where others with the same idea shared their layouts. It’s a great place for inspiration.
2024
I had taken over half of one of the kitchen worktops in 2023 but was permitted to take the whole side in 2024. In the end I took up, perhaps 90%.
The building started at the beginning of December with a model of The Griffin and the tram. We also bought some Harry Potter Diagon Alley building which seemed to fit the winter brief (there was snow on the roofs).
The village grew with the addition of more HP buildings and Santa’s Post Office with it’s hot air balloon.
The design was quite fluid as we keep moving sections around to accommodate new bits.
Here are a few ‘highlights’.
2025
With the village stowed away for another year, thoughts have already turned to this year’s reincarnation.
I did think that lights would be a good idea but didn’t want to spend too much on commercial products so found some tiny LEDs (30 for £9.99) and started playing coming up with a few ideas.
The diddy lights come with 200mm leads and resistors. Being so small they easily fit inside / on LEGO pieces.
To get the LEDs flashing I’ve rediscovered the Arduino microcontroller. This device (the little board with the red light in the photo) is a micro computer with connections with which you can control various items including LEDs, relays, motors etc.
I’ve knocked up the Belisha beacon and also a set of traffic lights. I also have a program for simulating a flickering fire.
I am hoping to equip most of the buildings with internal lights then add street lights, crossings and who knows what else – I’ve got until December to come up with more ideas.
As to the actual building, I’ll be going up, building on two levels which will give me more real estate to fill with buildings. I’ve obtained some crane supports (blue and green in the photo) which with the salmon coloured pieces will quickly build an elevated section.
