Legl Santa exchanges snowballs with the kids
GOSHEN – Local residents were all smiles, especially from their
children, visited Lego Santa during his first ever visit to Orange County
at the Legoland New York Community Welcome Center in Goshen over the weekend.
The Legoland New York Community Welcome Center celebrated its one-year anniversary on December 2, just last week. It is the only currently existing Legoland Community Welcome Center in the world and has had approximately 2,000 visitors within that time. Lego Santa’s visit to Goshen, alone, brought in 200 plus visitors on Saturday.
According to project Director of Development Phil Royle, the objective of the center is to integrate into the community by providing a relaxed, intimate atmosphere; however, beyond that, he said it’s about creating an unforgettable experience for the children, their main target demographic.
In addition to Lego Santa’s visit to Goshen, Royle said he still has his work cut out for him before he has to traverse the globe, spreading joy to all the girls and boys.
“He’s been busy and he’s going to be busy over this holiday season and he’ll be taking a bit of a vacation in Florida, at some point and he’ll be visiting California as well; but, he’s a busy guy,” Royle said of Santa.
Lego Santa will also be visiting the Westchester Discovery center on select dates.
“We’re very excited today to welcome Lego Santa for the first time, here, in Orange County, New York to come to the Legoland Community Welcome Center, where he’s been interacting with everyone and everyone from the local community has their opportunity to hang out with Santa, throw some snowballs at him and eat some cookies,” said Royle.
Catherine Curley of Goshen brought her two- year-old daughter Rhiannon to meet Lego Santa. Admittedly, Curley said Rhiannon is usually apprehensive, but she surprisingly took a liking to the geometric Lego form Santa had manifested for the occasion.
“Usually, she says, ‘No! No! No!’, to, ‘Ho Ho Ho’,
but she was fine with the Lego Santa,” said Curley. “Even
the Lego Santa made her feel at ease, so I think that she’s excited.
I think she’s going to be thrilled, just as we’re going to
be thrilled, as a family, to have Legoland come to our community and they
are part of our community.”
Legoland officials hope to break ground on their children’s amusement
park in the spring, but opponents are still hopeful that they can block
it.
