LEGO Build Day Date in the current year: December 27, 2024

LEGO is probably the most popular brand of plastic construction toys in the world. Its history dates back to 1932, when Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen founded a company producing cheap wooden toys, such as houses, pull-along animals and trucks, and yo-yos. The company was named Lego in 1934, which is a shortened form of the Danish expression leg godt (“play well”).

After the end of World War II, wood was not readily available, so Christiansen decided to invest into a plastic injection molding machine for producing plastic toys. The transition from wooden to plastic toys was somewhat challenging because customers weren’t used to the new material, but Christiansen didn’t give up.

LEGO started producing plastic building bricks, inspired by the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Brick, in 1949. Initially, the bricks weren’t very popular because they lacked sturdiness and didn’t stick together very well. However, Ole’s son Gottfred saw their potential after a conversation with an overseas buyer. He came up with the idea of a toy “system” consisting of building bricks with an improved locking ability. The new design of LEGO bricks was patented in 1958, and so the rise of LEGO began.

Today, LEGO is the largest toy manufacturer by sales; the company produces approximately 36 billion bricks per year. LEGO bricks come in sets with a variety of themes, including popular media franchises, but they are designed to be compatible with each other, so you can mix bricks from different LEGO sets to make something completely new and original. LEGO sets are so popular that the company has opened a chain of amusement parks and released LEGO-themed video games, board games, and even movies and television shows.

LEGO Build Day is an official tradition started by LEGO to encourage people to get creative. The easiest way to get involved is to gather your spare LEGO bricks, use them to build something unique, and then share the results with the world using the hashtag #LEGOBuildDay. What you build is up to you; your creation can be big or small, simple or complicated, a completely new thing or an extension to a current LEGO set. You can build whatever you want as long as you unleash your creativity and have fun.

If you don’t have any ideas, you can turn to the official LEGO website for inspiration and join one of LEGO Build Day challenges. For example, you can build something using just one brick color, set a timer and speed-build racing against each other, or try LEGO’s random idea generator that can generate prompts such as “Build a twinkling star… but with bonus rocket engines”.

LEGO Build Day is not the only holiday celebrating these famous construction sets. For example, International Lego Day is observed annually on January 28. It commemorates the day when the modern design of the Lego bricks was patented in 1958.