For most of us buying the right Christmas tree and putting up the ornaments is work enough. Not for the Addis family from Huntingdon, England however. Their Christmas routine involves creating something special - Lego brick by Lego brick!

For the last seventeen years, Mike Addis and his wife Catherine Weightman, both Lego fanatics, have built huge life-like Christmas-themed models, and this year, is no exception.

Built using more than 250,000 bricks, this year's creation is a replica of a snow covered Victorian mailbox that sits outside the gates of King's College in Cambridge.

The realistic looking 8ft-tall by 2-ft wide model, complete with eight birds perched on top, took the family, seven weeks to complete and contains some of the original Lego bricks that the couple has had, since their childhood.

Though Mike and Catherine always do the bulk of the construction, spending more than 100 hours each, their three kids contribute too, adding a couple of rows to the structure each evening, as part of their chores.

Prior year family projects have included, a local church, Santa Claus, Snowman, Angel, Santa coming down a chimney, a Sleigh and The Three Kings.

Mike and Catherine, who add to their collection by buying Lego bricks by the kilo (2.2 lbs) from EBay each year, estimate that their collection of over half a million Lego bricks is worth about $15,000USD.

Besides being a fun family project, the Lego model also provides the perfect background for the family's Christmas picture every year and, a great memory for future years.

That's because come January 6th, the Addis family will start the sobering task of dismantling their masterpiece and carefully storing away the precious bricks for next year!

Source:DailyMail.co.uk, cambridge-news.co.uk