Building things with Lego blocks has always been popular activity around the McCray household.
They also always look forward to attending the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation's Festival of Trees. Allison and Kevin McCray have made a point of taking their boys, Matt, 14, and Ryan, 11, to the Civic Centre event every year just to get them into the Christmas mood.
This year, the McCrays decided to combine the two.
Their intricate Lego city scene tree is one of the highlights of this year's Festival of Trees, which runs through Sunday at the Civic Centre.
The street scene consists of dozen buildings set up on both sides of street, personalized by miniature people going about their daily routines, like walking to work, cutting lawns or cooking on barbecues. Decorating the seven-foot tree is a collection of Christmas ornaments, all made of Lego. The McCrays needed close to 30,000 pieces for their display, which they started building in July and finished earlier this month.
"Lego is huge in our house, the kids love Lego so much, and in the summer we just decided to build a Lego tree," said Allison McCray.
"We just ordered everything online. We figured out the ornaments and ordered the individual bricks and the city buildings are individual sets we put together ourselves. It was all over our dining room table forever."
The $7,000 cost of the Lego blocks was paid for by Kevin McCray's companies, White Spruce Enterprises and CC Industries. Their tree, which is not made of Lego, has 9,000 Lego blocks hanging from its boughs. The cityscape, which includes a large courthouse, required 20,000 pieces.
"We're really proud of it," said Allison. "We were there one night and just stood back and watched people look at it and they were amazed with all the detail. The kids really enjoyed building it and thought it looked really good and they had lots of input as to what we were going to put together.
"We started with the buildings and it just went from there and we started building the ornaments. I was worried the ornaments would be too heavy and the Lego might pull apart. We just had to make sure it all held together."
Through the magic of Google, they downloaded photos of Lego ornaments and magnified them to determine which bricks they needed.
The McCray kids were regulars at the Festival of Trees Teddy Bear breakfast until they grew out of it, but they still like the festival and attend it every year.
"It's just so festive and Christmasy and this year," Allison said. "Being on the other side of it, setting up our tree, you see how much work goes into it. A few of those girls were there all week from seven in the morning till 11 at night, fluffing trees and getting ready for the decorators.
"I had no idea how much work goes into that event. It's a good thing for the kids to learn, that they can help out by giving back. I just love it every year, it gets you in the spirit."
All proceeds will go to the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation, which funds medical equipment purchases for UHNBC.
Admission for the Festival is $5 per person, $3 students/seniors, or $10 for a family pass. It's open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today through Saturday, and from 11 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. The gala auction set for Friday night is sold out.
