Auckland's huge LEGO Christmas tree
Posted by FlagsNZ,
A couple of weeks ago, LEGO Certified Professional, Ryan McNaught assembled the largest LEGO model in New Zealand - a 10m tall LEGO Christmas tree.
Read on to find out more about this huge LEGO model and see some of the LEGO display provided by AuckLUG, Auckland's LEGO User Group as part of the Auckland City Council OurAuckland program.
Also, if you are in New Zealand and close to Auckland, find out how to obtain free tickets to the Auckland Live - Summer in the City activities and get some free LEGO at the Christmas LEGO Build Event.
Ryan The Brickman McNaught and his team of LEGO builders created the massive LEGO Christmas tree. Ryan McNaught is one of 14 LEGO Certified Professionals; he is the only LEGO Certified Professional in the southern hemisphere.
The huge LEGO Christmas tree, mostly made out of DUPLO, is as tall as a two story house, it stands at over 10 metres tall (33 feet) and weighs 3.5 tonnes (3.9 US tons). It took more than 1,200 hours to build and contains more than 500,000 LEGO bricks.
Here is a time lapse video showing the Christmas tree being assembled.
Antipodean Summer Christmas
Christmas in the southern hemisphere is a summer event and this is reflected in some of the model's design: Santa is wearing shorts and a singlet and has a surf board wrapped in gift paper.
Kiwiana
Surrounding the tree are some very Kiwiana styled decorations. Two Kiwis, New Zealand's nocturnal, national icon are scratching around in a couple of gift boxes.
My favourite decoration is the Pukeko. Unlike most of New Zealand's native birds, Pukekos have adapted well to the urbanisation: they can be found in parks and bush areas everywhere. Pukekos have distinctive blue-purple plumage with contrasting red beaks.
Ryan McNaught has captured the Pukeko's look really well and has given the Pukeko a festive Christmas hat. Ryan has missed out the Pukeko's gangly long-clawed feet through.
Traditional decorations
A young reindeer calf looks on. This brick-built young calf appeared in last year's 10245 Santa's Workshop but without the red nose.
There is a familiar Nutcracker soldier guarding the Christmas tree. A cricket bat is waiting under the tree ready to be unwrapped before a game of summer back-yard cricket.
Constructing the Christmas tree
Here is an interview with Ryan McNaught about how he designed and assembled the Christmas tree.
Christmas LEGO Build Event
During the festivities, Auckland Live - Summer in the City is holding a Christmas LEGO Build Event.
You can bring the family to Aotea Square and build your own LEGO Christmas holiday keepsake. Participants are given a free 30182 Santa or 30474 Reindeer polybag to build.
The sessions take place half hourly starting from 1pm with the last entry to the event at 3.30pm each day. This activity is free with limited capacity. Bookings are essential.
AuckLUG Display
The Auckland LEGO User Group held a small display on Sunday 11 December.
A small number of the LUG's active members show-cased a selection of their prized MOCs.
There was a Classic Space spaceport.
A City construction crew are constructing the first few floors of a skyscraper.
There were a few impressive Technic MOCs with some detailing in custom chrome parts .
A Ninjago castle.
There was a display with all the Winter Village sets. I was fortunate to recently receive the 10254 Winter Holiday Train from overseas: it is not yet available in NZ stores.
It was a relatively small display with limited space; however, there was a steady stream of people walking past.
Night time
From 7pm, the Christmas tree comes to life with a light and sound show. As this is summer though, it does not get dark enough to appreciate the lighting effects until after 9pm.
Staying up that late is well worth the wait.
To Brickset members around the world, Happy Holidays from FlagsNZ and the AuckLUG team.
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17 comments on this article
Thank you for this article. Great to see on the walk to work in the morning. I hope we get more models and shows like this in the future.
Hope to pop down and check it out, hopefully will be nice weather next weekend.
Merry Christmas AUCKLAND from an Italian-American from NYC! And a Happy New Year Too! Awesome display!
Very nice!
Utterly fantastic! And what a genius move to make the tree from DUPLO, not to save time but to ensure it stays looking "bricky" at a distance.
BTW, if you _have_ to use non-metric measurements*, then please cite them properly: the tree weighs 3.9 IMPERIAL tons!
* since 1799 - that's over two centuries to get used to proper weights and measures.
Excellent... except for all that glue they inevitably had to use
I've been really wanting to move my family to New Zealand for awhile now, so thank you so much for this. Now I only want to move that much more! Now to convince my wife :)
^^ I have grown up with the metric system all my life. 1 long (imperial) ton = 2240 pounds and has been in use since the 13th century. 1 long ton = 1.12 short (US) tons. The short ton = 2000 pounds.
I put the converted measurements in the article for the benefit of our US members hence the use of US tons.
The tree weighs 3.4 imperial tons.
What a lovely fun story! Thanks!
Epic builds!!
wow amazing builds!!
Very nice, thanks for sharing.
This looks great, from the 'headline' builds right down to the heavily 'Chromified' Technic builds. I'd like to know what extra functionality the latter have because I think I can see the Aggregate Grader from the BWE, but there's another PF build going on there. Christmas in Summer is a really surreal thought - but I certainly wouldn't mind a really long warm day to spend with friends and family rather than a short, dank and rainy one.
^ The whole winter roast and snow decorations loses its impact here. Christmas is often celebrated with a trip to the beach. I will be cooking on our BBQ outside on the deck.
As a teenager, my family had a holiday in the UK over winter and we visited a small village in the Pennine range: Castleton. Dark and cold early in the afternoon with real snow on the windows frames.
Lovely memories, but I prefer the summer holiday. Its also coincides with the long school holiday break.
That is all incredibly impressive!
Christmas only feels like Christmas when there's snow on the ground - and that doesn't happen very often in the lowlands of the UK. Still, we very much enjoyed Christmas in NZ three years ago whilst on honeymoon - waking up in a more or less deserted campsite in the Haast Pass, climbing a hill, driving out to Bruce Bay, walking on the beach, and the next day visiting the glaciers (so at least we saw some ice & snow:-) )
Oh, and the Pohutukawa (aka NZ Christmas tree) everywhere in flower - now, has anyone managed to make one of those in Lego (to get this back on topic...)? I imagine you'd need lots of red aerial pieces?
I really need to go to the Auckland CBD this weekend. I was thinking about going a few weeks ago but with your photos I think it is time to do it now ;-)