It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, it’s the holiday season, but it’s also the return of our annual LEGO advent calendar extravaganza. We’ll be opening our calendar windows every day in the run-up to Christmas. Our team will also share their thoughts, comments, observations, and jokes about each day’s builds!
We have five advent calendars this year, across the City, Friends, Star Wars, Marvel (specifically Guardians of the Galaxy), and Harry Potter themes. Let’s get right into it and see what’s hiding behind the doors of day 21, shall we?
Into the home stretch now with only four days left! Day 21 is another addition to the Friends Christmas market, with some milk and cookies for Santa. In City, we have a lamppost.
The Harry Potter calendar doubles as a game, and it’s today that we get the dreidel for that, to sweeten the deal of getting Hedwig on a 2×4 plate. Marvel has what is presumably some sort of speeder craft, while we get Luke Skywalker in Hoth garb out of Star Wars.
Ben: The City and Friends builds are great little Xmas scenes, that lend themselves to kids adding them straight into their own model to add a Christmas flourish. It’s great to see this type of build, for me always welcome.
Kyle: The streetlamp here is phenomenal! I may end up borrowing that simple design.
Chris: I just love the fact that the dreidel is printed with LEGO-themed graphics. That Guardians… Thing, though…
*checks Bricklink*
OK, apparently it’s a rocket sleigh cockpit. Colour me unimpressed, but I’ll withhold judgment until I see the rest of it tomorrow.
Bart: What is the dreidel for? Is the HP calendar actually a game?
It is indeed a game – although aside from some small text on the box, this is our first clue as to how the game actually works. Essentially, you have to try and collect a build from each movie, with the dreidel/die/spinning top determining whether you lose a build, gain a build, or steal one from your opponent. Simple enough, but possibly not a game that you’ll spend hours playing on Christmas Day.
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Sincerely, the Guardians of the Galaxy / Marvel advent calendar is on the whole really… Disappointing isn’t it?
I think the Guardians calendar has been really good this year. The minifigures are great and I think most of them have only appeared in the Benatar set, so it’s nice to get them for quite a lot cheaper. I really like the Christmas sweater minifigs and there are two this year and they both look great. There have been a lot of great builds, like a giant gun for Rocket, Star-Lord’s Walkman and the speakers which I think are from Vol 2. The Milano looks great and I also like the Benatar even though it doesn’t seem super popular. You also get some other good ships from the movies, although I still can’t place the small blue and yellow one. I loved how day 6 was full of references. The headphones in the present from day 2 were great, much better than an empty box. There are also some festive builds like the dessert table and candy cane which could fit well into a lot of builds. Judging from the box, it seems like the sleigh is going to be split over the 3 days, which is kind of weird, but I do like the build so I can’t complain too much. The Thanos snowman was also a great reference.
The giant candy cane is also a reference in the guardians holiday special, which made it thematic on both levels.