Mother and son build Lego Christmas village

MT. PLEASANT — Southeast Iowa Realty proudly displays an intricate Lego Village in their front office.

Using 13,730 pieces and an estimated 70 man-hours, Julie and Niall Dameron created a magical Christmas village.

According to Julie, the two slowly began the project in August.

“August was mainly when we planned,” Niall said. “The main push was in November.”

Most of the structures come from predesigned Lego sets, but Niall put his own personal stamp on the town with his own design for railroad tunnels.

“I’m really proud to see it all set up, finally,” Niall said.

He does have a favorite part of the village, too.

“I like the square we have going on over here,” he said as he pointed out the bustling square.

The Lego square is complete with a bakery, benches, lampposts, an ice rink, and even Santa Claus surrounded by historic looking buildings.

Julie’s favorite part is the ski lodge.

“It is just really great engineering,” she said. “He figured out how to keep the ski lodge flat and have the skiers still at an angle.”

“I probably would have kept having the lodge slide down,” Julie said with a laugh.

Julie found building the most difficult “when you find you’re missing a piece and you have to go back and tear things apart to figure it out,” she said.

For Niall, “Getting everything on the table was probably the most difficult part,” he said.

While Julie enjoys putting together predesigned sets, she says that Legos are really Niall’s hobby.

“He’s like a Master Builder,” she said.

In fact, Niall even competed in the Lego building contest at BrickCon all the way in Seattle in 2019.

According to Julie, Niall’s MOC (My Own Creation) build won a prize that year and he placed among some of the top speed builders.

“Knowing how to speed build really helped when it came to crunch time,” Niall said.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com