Creating Christmas magic for 17 years

The Christmas train display at the Millennium Seoul Hilton Hotel is one of the most famous Christmas decorations in the capital, cherished by hotel guests and citizens for 17 years.

The display surrounds the 10-meter Christmas tree in the center of the hotel lobby and instantly put hotel guests and visitors in the Christmas spirit. Some people even join bus tours to see the landmark display.

Behind the annual Christmas setting of handcrafted model buildings, trains and scenes are Gerry McElligott, Irish-American designer of Christmas Display Artists, and his team.

McElligott has been devoted to creating Christmas train displays for over 20 years. He started Christmas train landscaping at the Hilton hotel in Guam and expanded to many other cities including Tokyo, Fukuoka, Osaka, Kuala Lumpur, Nagoya and Shanghai.

“It is a European tradition because the rail trains used to bring people home,” said McEilligot in the interview with The Korea Herald last week.

“And in Europe, every toy store has a train display during Christmas, so it’s part of Christmas, The Hilton Seoul was the first to bring it to Korea,” he said.

Born in Ireland, McElligott spends an average of five months overseas working on Christmas train displays.

“It’s fun to see when everything comes together. It’s nice when you sit back and have a glass of beer and look at it,” he said during a break over a glass of Guinness.

Every year, McElligott’s team creates scenes and donates the trains that are sponsored by companies to Hyeshimwon Orphanage in Korea.

The scenes are created by Korean students from the Kookmin University design department who apply their imagination to the scenes.

“If you look carefully at human figures and models, you will find funny scenes like a pig cut in half on a rail lane and a man holding toilet paper in front of a restroom,” said Park Hee-jung, who has been making the train display for five years with McElligott and his Korean co-worker Kim Yoon-jun.

Asked how it is like to watch people’s reaction, McElligott said laughing: “I leave before it breaks. Kids come and try to touch the train. But telling them not to do it doesn’t stop them from touching it.”

Finishing a round of Christmas displays until Dec. 5, McElligott expects to return home for Christmas. The trains will be on display until Jan. 13 at the Millennium Seoul Hilton.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)