Refresher course on what this here is all about:

From now through Christmas, I'm revisiting several of the best gifts Santa ever chucked my way. They're wrapped up and scattered throughout our apartment, like colorful but static rats, waiting for their opportunities to strike. Sorry, I don't know where the rat thing came from.

They're the gifts that made me me, but I think today's gift also made several of you you. It's something millions upon millions of kids had at one point or another, and probably several times over. It's shown below, hidden by cheapo Rudolph wrapping paper:

Any guesses?

I'll give you a hint: It has a lot of pieces.

Come on. Think.

Or do you need a peek?

Bah, you're disqualified. My peeks always give too much away.

Yes, it's something LEGO-related, but it's that special kind of LEGO-related thing.

The ultimate set. The one that fueled your creativity and never once dictated a thousand step process leading you to build some random thing you barely had any interest in. The big one. The one that would someday become a garbage pail for bedside ice cream wrappers.

It's gone by many names, but none summarize its beauty as well as its perennial nickname. No matter what the Danes call it, we'll always know it as a LEGO Bucket.

There were countless spins on it, but they almost always came in a pail and there were almost always more LEGO bricks than we knew what to do with.

I can't tie LEGO Buckets to any specific Christmas, because I seemed to get one every Christmas. I never asked for them, and I never shouted with glee when I received them. Never mattered. As the months beyond December always proved, a LEGO Bucket was an amazing present.

I'd always save the LEGO Bucket for last. My other presents were more exciting, or at least they seemed that way. Let's face it: LEGO Buckets didn't come with a lot of bragging rights. When you went back to school in January, it was the last thing you'd ever boast about. Everyone had them. Everyone took LEGO for granted.

But man, every time I finally cracked that baby open and spread across the floor for a marathon session of building whatever the fuck, I wondered why I waited so long. If I'm being objective, a case can be made that a LEGO Bucket is the best present a kid could possibly get. If, you know, we're limiting the definition to stuff toy stores sell.

By and large, today's "focused" LEGO sets intimidate me. I grew up on the buckets, so I was used to making whatever I wanted. I loved that freedom. I loved knowing that no matter how strange (bad) my creations were, they were never ever wrong. No instructions, no picture tutorials – just lawless glory.

I look at those pieces and I'm reminded of every variation of my old bedroom. Once you had a LEGO Bucket, it was only a matter of time before its contents dispersed. They were like alien spores. Countless vacuums gave their lives to LEGO pieces that were never meant to go through them. Every shelf and drawer in your room was sure to hide at least one LEGO piece. Everywhere you looked, LEGO was there.

I have no idea what you guys did what your LEGO Buckets, but for me, there were two choices:

1. If enough wheels were included, I'd create some kind of ludicrous battle vehicle. A warship-on-wheels. I'd carefully ensure that my death car was as long as possible, which also challenged the pieces to hold together even when every facet of gravity and pressure told them not to.

2. If the bucket included a large, flat "green piece," then the warship idea was put on hold for the only thing better: An enormous LEGO fortress, with erratically positioned windows and things that were supposed to be guns but were actually just rectangular LEGO pieces.

The particular bucket from today's photos – a 1989 LEGO Basic Building Set – came with one of those holy "green pieces." The canvas on which the best castle in history will sprout. There is no way I can review a LEGO Bucket and not turn its contents into a goofy fortress. I'd be so angry with me.

I started building up the frame, fully expecting to put my normal five minutes of half-effort in before taking a few photos and calling it a night.

Instead, I completely lost myself in the fun, just like I used to, eyes off the clock. Creating a bizarre, fully armed battle base is strangely relaxing. I don't know if I'd call it therapeutic or merely distracting, but nothing else matters when you're making a crazy LEGO house.

As my LEGO ranch grew into a skyscraper, I started to remember all of the old "rules."

The main goal was to use every last LEGO piece. It didn't matter if my house came out looking upside-down, or if I put the door in backwards. So long as every piece was in play, I won.

The secondary goal was a deliberate rebellion against the structure of real houses and real castles. I wanted mine to be unique. I was building my interpretation of the perfect clubhouse. For some reason, this included wheels on top of windows, and helicopter blades on shaky spires.

I can't exactly recall what the LEGO castles of my youth looked like, but I'm sure they were something like this:

It makes no sense, but I love it. I love how it starts out pretty normal at the bottom, but slowly devolves into sheer psycho-funhouse pandemonium as you head for the roof. (Which isn't a roof, really, but more of a garden/auto center.)

It's just as ugly as the fortresses I used to build, but it's probably ten times as stable. As a child, I never seemed to grasp the concept of a durable LEGO castle. I'd always end up with walls that would fall at the slightest wind, or I'd try to connect the LEGO pieces diagonally, which was as good as hiring a hitman to throw a rock at the thing at soon as you finished building it.

I guess, if I've gotten better at anything in the last twenty years, it's making a shitty LEGO fortress that won't fall down as soon as the neighbor across the street claps at something on TV. Maybe Wendy Williams said something she could relate to, I don't know.

Additional photos:

This was a joy. Every bit as fun as I'd remembered.

Of course, now that I've built a fortress, I can't shake the notion that I'm supposed to sit on it and make a warship-on-wheels next. If I had no other responsibilities, I absolutely would.

Stores that carry LEGO toys mostly stock the "themed" sets nowadays, but if you search around, the "make whatever you want" sets are still out there, ready to turn Saturday afternoon into a mission to recreate Castle Dracula, in a 1:60 scale, using all the wrong colors.

No matter how old you are, you need to do that. Again, or for the first time.

Just think of the incredible sound all of those LEGO pieces made in their buckets. Like loose change, but friendlier. You know the one. And you won't get it out of your head until you hear it again, for real. Make it happen.

Previously on The Greatest Christmas Presents Ever: Wacky Action Michaelangelo!