It's been more than 20 years since I last built a Lego set. I'd forgotten just how much I used to enjoy putting the sets together and then playing with them ... until I received a very pleasant reminder under the Christmas tree this year.

My family and I had done a trip to New York City in the summer and had visited a Lego Store while we were there. I remember being amazed at how far the sets had come since I was a child - they were far bigger and more complex, with a lot more moving parts and so much more variety in what you could build.

My childhood sets were pretty plain in comparison - the ubiquitous castle set or the generic race car. The sets of today, however, almost transport you into new universes and dimensions. There are sets themed after Star Wars, The Avengers, Batman, city scapes, landmarks and a whole host of other highly relate-able scenes.

One of the sets that really caught my eye at the store was the Ferris Wheel (10247). It was vibrant, colorful and had a hypnotic effect as I stood and watching the wheel move, with the passenger pods rocking gently back and forth as the wheel rotated. I remember both my mom and I pointing and (as my sister's fiance later said "drooling") over the set. However, after a few minutes of ogling, we had moved on and our visit to the Lego store was promptly forgotten amid the other delights of NYC.

Luckily for my mom and me, my sister and her fiance have far better memories, as neither of them forgot. And so, December 25, I tore open the rather large box that had arrived from Amazon for me and found THIS staring back at me ...