Go back to Night 1, here.

On the second night of Hanukkah, our family received the gift of Lego set 10259, the Winter Village Station.

I like to make our Eight Nights of Hanukkah Gifts things that we can enjoy as a family. While some parents may think Lego is just for the kids, those of us who still love to build would argue that a Lego set is a great starting point for creative family togetherness.

It is possible that I threaten the kids on “one gift shared by two brothers” nights by saying they should either enjoy their collective present peacefully, or the joy of building reverts to Mommy.

I may as well admit right now that I’m a tyrannical dictator albeit with benevolent intentions. I’m supposing that’s been obvious for about as long as I’ve been writing about parenting.

We’ve been collecting the “Winter Holiday” series from Lego since it was introduced a few years ago. While it is true that their “seasonal” decor leans more “Christmas-y” than secular, it is also true that the classic holiday look reflects fairly closely what we see in our community.

Reflects our New England community, except maybe for the steam engine. Our local commuter rail employs modern diesel-electric locomotives.

It’s not hard to construct our own hanukkiah* to add to the Christmas tree in the winter village square.

Considering the number of aliens and other non-traditional types who populate our Lego scenes, we consider Bricklyn** to be a tolerant and accepting community where every minifig can worship or not as s/he sees fit.

And this particular contribution to the Winter Village? A train station? With a level crossing?

Oh me, oh my, there was no chance I would let this set slip by.

This mom likes trains. I like to travel by train, and I like to build toy tracks. I’m a sucker for the romance of the rails.

My oldest child was a Thomas the Tank Engine nut as a tot, and he still enjoys model railroading. To this day, he can name more of those little wooden trains than I would think possible. He’s our greatest engineer, and will build the best layout for our space, with our tracks.

DH is less an enthusiast, but will play with any radio controlled (RC) or motorized vehicle when given the chance. The trick with that man is keeping him within the bounds of our Lego city and the established decorums. He never builds according to the rules! We appreciate his creative nature, but sometimes have to reign in his wildest innovations.

And DS₂? He’s a natural storyteller. You could give him a bowling set to play with, and he would weave a complex tale of the pins’ interrelationships and the great tragedy of the upcoming ball. Seriously! He might already be the most compelling narrator I’ve ever met, a fabulist in the best sense of the word. I often see my role as protecting him from having his boundless talent for spinning yarns educated out of him by a well-meaning system run by dull-witted bureaucrats. This little boy breathes the breath of life into Bricklyn, animating its subjects, and inspiring everyone else’s constructions to add dimension to our shared story.

Someday, we plan to have a model train—probably of the Lego variety—permanently set up around an open atrium in our living room. Blame it on my early exposure to Mr. Rogers and his trolley, but it’s been a dream of mine since I was a child, and my family seems equally keen on the plan. In my most elaborate fantasy, we will sandwich a Lego public transit system between two layers of acrylic sheet and create an entire subterranean level for our Lego city. My heart flutters when I think of it!

But, for today, we have a Winter Village Station to build. I promised the little guy that DS₁ and I would get the main building assembled before he got home from school; he wants to make the old-fashioned truck by himself.

With the holiday school break approaching, we should have some serious hours to spend together in our invented winter wonderland.

Happy Hanukkah!

חגחנוכהשמח

Click here to go to night three.

♦

*The nine branched candle holder used specifically for Hanukkah is a “hanukkiah.” Notice the raised position, in the center of my hanukkiah, for the helper candle, or “shamash.” We use the shamash to light the other candles.

A “menorah” is a (now purely symbolic) seven armed candelabra that dates back to the days of the First Temple in Jerusalem where it would have been lit by the priests in a nightly ritual. Our Temple was destroyed, so we now make religious observances together in a house of prayer or “synagogue” instead of the Holy Temple.

**Read more about our family Lego project and its pride of place smack dab in the middle of the living room in this post.