LAKELAND, Fla. -- LEGOLAND is busy most of the year, but the holiday season amps up the workload for the crew in charge of assembling the brightly-colored displays.
“Every year we put up our 30-foot Christmas tree,” Luke Phillips said. “We get to design and build. It’s great.”
Phillips is a LEGO Master Builder. He says it’s his dream job. He started working at the Winter Haven, Fla. resort shortly after it opened seven years ago but didn’t get the position he wanted. He began on the clean-up crew. Then, applied for his “dream job.”
“When I was a kid, I had no idea this was a job,” he said, standing in front of a giant wall of assembled LEGO characters. “Most kids don’t realize that you can take a lot of the stuff you are doing as a kid and turn it into a career.”
Phillips is part of the building team that assembles all the attractions in the LEGOLAND park, including the 30-foot tall, 300,000-piece lighted Christmas tree. He’s also especially proud of his work to create a 10-foot tall Christmas wreath the park visitors use for family photos.
“It was something that I always wished as a kid that I could do, I mean, forever,” he said of building with LEGO. “I get paid to play with toys all day. It’s one of the best things, right?”
Phillips grew up putting together LEGO models just about an hour away from the park in Sebring, Fla.
LEGOLAND is hosting its Christmas Bricktacular each weekend between now and the end of December. Kids will have a chance to meet LEGO Santa and see lights around the theme park.
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