Join us for our annual holiday meeting Saturday, November 11, from 11-2 at Vanagan’s.

7309 Ruffner Avenue, Lake Balboa, CA 91406

Please RSVP for the meeting here.

Bring a favorite holiday food. It can be your homemade pumpkin pie, a 2 liter of that special cranberry Sprite, or whatever else you’d like. We’ll share the food and why it’s special to us. 

We’ll also be doing two activities.

Dirty Brickster

Dirty Brickster is the AFOL name for the White Elephant style gift exchange, but, I cannot stress this enough, all the presents should be good! Everyone brings a WRAPPED LEGO gift worth at least $19.99. It can be an actual LEGO set, or something LEGO related (book, shirt, etc.). It can be a single item worth $19.99, or several smaller items that add up to it (like Collectible Minifigs). Just bring something that you would be happy to get and you’re sure to make someone happy.

Everyone puts their gift in the middle, and we draw numbers. Number one opens one of the gifts. Number two can open new a present or steal from number one. Number three can open a new present or steal from one or two, and so on until everyone has had a turn.

Presents are frozen after being stolen twice (a total of three possessions). Once this happens that present cannot be stolen again and you can taunt everyone with what they can’t have.

No need to sign-up ahead of time for the Dirty Brickster. Just show up with a wrapped gift. And if you’re attending with kids or other family members they’re more than welcome to bring a gift and participate too.

Secret Brickster Ornament Exchange

We’ll be running a Secret Brickster Ornament Exchange again this year. It was a real highlight of our activities the past couple years, with lots of absolutely amazing creations built with care.

The idea is that each participant will build an ornament MOC for someone else. Then during our December meeting we’ll open them all up.

I use “ornament” very loosely here; it should be a small MOC, ideally with a spot for a hook included so it could hang on a tree. Preferably you’ll build based on your receiver’s interests and holidays celebrated, so if someone likes Technic and celebrates Hannukah, a mini Technic menorah would be the way to go.

For inspiration, check out Chris McVeigh’s many designs. They range from totally Christmas-y to geometric to geeky. If you’re feeling less creative, you could even build one of those in your receiver’s favorite color. It’s less about your building skill and more about the care you put into making something nice for the other person.