IT took seven weeks and over 100,000 bricks (before they stopped counting) but Christmas would not be Christmas without one Huntingdon family building a giant Lego structure. Each year the models get bigger and bigger, forcing the family to relocate their

IT took seven weeks and over 100,000 bricks (before they stopped counting) but Christmas would not be Christmas without one Huntingdon family building a giant Lego structure.

Each year the models get bigger and bigger, forcing the family to relocate their Christmas tree to the other end of the sitting room.

This year husband and wife, Catherine Weightman and Mike Addis, and their three children, Thomas, 17, Christopher 10 and Holly, 13, have created a five-and-a half feet tall church.

The model is a replica of All Saints Church in Earls Barton, which has a Saxon tower, in Northamptonshire where Mr Addis grew up.

Mr Addis, 50, who teaches business studies at Hinchingbrooke School in Huntingdon, spent 10 hours working out the model before even a little plastic brick was laid.

Then Catherine, 45, bio-diversity co-ordinator for English Nature and the children joined in

From Mike's birthday (on October 13) onwards, the family spent their evenings and weekends working on the Christmas construction.

Mr Addis said: "We finished the model on December 1. We spent almost every evening on it and some weekends we worked on it for 12 to 15 hours.

"We often watched the television at the same time. We watched Dr Who when it was on and Little Dorit, although we stopped building when that was on."

The family Lego tradition goes back 15 years.

"We had friends who had a child before us who was then about four or five and we were looking for something he could play with and both of us had kept our Lego so we brought it out. That was just before Christmas and we started building a Father Christmas, that one was 18 inches tall and each year they have got bigger and bigger."

After Christmas, the family have another ceremony to take the edifice down - they invite another family to come to join them in taking the model apart and it gets packed up in boxes to be placed in the spare room.

The family has nearly half a million Lego bricks and keeps adding to their collection by buying more on eBay by the kilo.

And yes, they have been to Legoland and they loved it.

Mr Addis said: "The models there are slightly better than ours but then they have all the right parts, we have to improvise.