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The holiday atmosphere has captured the Acropolis Museum, which is emblematic of Athens. Its main attraction for those visitors who will cross its threshold during the Christmas and New Year holidays is a model of the Acropolis entirely made of Lego bricks.

The impressive model is a gift to the Acropolis Museum from the Nicholson Museum in Sydney. The model’s author Ryan McNott used 120,000 bricks and it took him about 300 hours to make it. His creation had attracted the attention of over 100,000 visitors to the Australian museum.

In addition to the presentation of the model, the Acropolis Museum is preparing children programmes, which will enable young visitors to create models with Lego bricks next year.

In parallel, the Museum is organizing a series of holiday events that include mobile children's workshops, discussions for adults, jolly tunes and songs, entertainment and many surprises.

Children's workshop "Decorate the Wooden Goddess": A wooden statue of the patron of Athens, goddess Athena, was placed in her temple and they said that it had fallen from the sky. The ancient Athenians worshiped the goddess by taking care of the statue during holidays. They would wash it and decorate it with ornaments, and during the Panathenaic holiday, they would dress the statue in an ornate garment that depicted scenes from the famous battle between the Olympian gods and the giants. Visitors can stroll among the museum exhibits and then try to decorate their own replica of the wooden statue using modern materials.

The workshop is intended for children aged 7-12 years. Participation requires the purchase of a special ticket costing 3 euro.

Dates and time: 20, 21, 27 and 28 December at 11:30 am and 1:30 pm.

Children's workshop "Gifts for Gods and Men": During the Christmas and New Year holidays children can seek ideas for creating their own decorations from the works of ancient art exhibited in the museum.

The workshop is intended for children aged 7-12 years. The participation requires the purchase of a special ticket costing 2 euro.

Dates and time: 20, 21, 27 and 28 December at 5:30 pm.

Children's workshop "Ancient Customs and Ornaments to Wish a Happy New Year": It will allow children to create their own amulets with wishes for good health, love, power and wisdom, inspired by the exhibits in the museum. Furthermore, as every year, all together will decorate the so-called "iresioni", an olive branch that ancient Athenians decorated for good luck, as we nowadays decorate the Christmas tree.

The workshop is intended for children aged 7-12 years. The participation requires the purchase of a special ticket costing 2 euro.

Dates and time: 20 and 21 December at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm.

Saturday performance on "The Athenians and the others in the Acropolis Museum": Both the ancient and the modern world is a world of relations between peoples and cultures. How had ancient Athenians perceived themselves in this diverse environment? How had they defined the others compared to them? A discussion with archaeologists, restorers of the museum, on the presence of "aliens" in the region of ancient Athens over the course of time that will take place in front of the ruins of the sanctuary of the Acropolis.

Dates and time: 20 December at 1:00 pm. The participation requires the purchase of a special ticket costing 5 euro.

Christmas and New Year tunes: On 21 and 28 December the navy orchestra will perform popular tunes in the Acropolis Museum on the occasion of the coming holidays. Soprano Evdokia Moisidou and tenor Stavros Salambasopoulos will sing as well.

The museum extends an invitation for family visits, during which families with young children can explore the collections with the help of free bags full of themed archaeological toys and flyers.

The talisman of the Acropolis Museum for 2015 is the image of a playful young god who embodies the strong physical attraction between two people. It was inspired by a scene depicted on a vase from the late 5th century BC that has been found in the sanctuary of the bride in the south part of the Acropolis. A figure of Eros flaps his wings around young girls who carry boxes with gifts to the bride during the preparation of her wedding.