Harry Potter Advent Calendar - Day 24
Posted by CapnRex101,
76456 LEGO Harry Potter Advent Calendar 2025 is unique among the seven Harry Potter Advent Calendar sets released to date, given the major focus away from minifigure-scale.
I am curious to see how it concludes...
I was not expecting Harry's stag Patronus as the finale to the Advent Calendar. Harry's casting of his Patronus is an iconic moment, but I still consider this a strange choice when there are so many festive items that could take its place. I suppose the colour scheme gives the Patronus an icy aesthetic, if nothing else.
It might be a surprising choice for the final model, but I think the Patronus looks fantastic. The shape of the antlers is effective and the colour scheme works well, mixing trans-light blue and bright light blue parts. The body and legs are quite similar to Buckbeak and the Thestral found earlier in the Advent Calendar as well, but this is my favourite of the three.
Overall - I am not sure why the stag Patronus was reserved for the final day, but at least this is a nice model.
Summary
It took me a while to warm up to the contents of this Advent Calendar, but I appreciate the effort to do something different and some of the models have been quite impressive, by the end. I am not convinced by the decision to repeat the minifigures' festive jumpers though, splendid though those minifigures are.
Ultimately, I enjoyed seeing something different from the Harry Potter Advent Calendar in 2025, but I hope next year's calendar returns to the expected minifigure-scale focus, particularly if the contents relate to sets released over the course of the year, similar to 76438 LEGO Harry Potter 2024 Advent Calendar complementing 76435 Hogwarts Castle: The Great Hall.
What do you think of this year's Harry Potter Advent Calendar? Let us know in the comments and thank you for following this series!
33 likes
17 comments on this article
My favourites were Buckbeak, the chocolate frog, the Mandrake and today's Patronus.
I thought it was interesting, but not very festive feeling
The Christmas jumpers were the standouts.
If they were going to do bright-light-blue, why couldn’t they do the bracket I need?
Honestly, the record number of Minifigures plus getting us out of the Great Hall is fantastic.
I'm loving all the transparent parts, especially the https://brickset.com/parts/6526019/brick-1x2x1-bow-w-cutout I didn't even know that piece had a transparent version!
The nice sweaters were probably the best bit of this calendar. It really didn't do much for me besides that.
OTOH, at least I can swap out hair and heads and use the various minifigs as random folk in my city setups.
It was fun to see them do something different with the calendar this year, after quite a few iterations on the same theme with HP, even if some of the models were misses
Oh no. It was a stag-party, all along.
If only it was a little greener it could have been a teal deer.
A great Patronous or ice sculpture.
I appreciate that they tried something different. But this calender felt like it was heavily leaning on its usual generous print budget and filled the rest with creator-esque builds of creatures. And the figs feel like the print budget was stretched thin. Sure those torsos are cool. But it didn't really feel like they had a purpose as they were beside those brick-built objects and creatures.
Of course, I could build a stag patronus. Because that's what I saw, myself, buildibg it, not my Dad, so of course, I knew I could do it.
Time travel building an advent calendar is always so confusing. ;)
@PurpleDave said:
"If they were going to do bright-light-blue, why couldn’t they do the bracket I need?"
Ihaven't MOCed in years (even before the stroke I hadn't in a good while), but I feel your pain.
Maybe they did the Patronus as a substitute for a reindeer.
CapnRex, thank you for this tour through the Harry Potter Calendar. Not my favorite of this year's ACs, but not a bad one at all! Merry Christmas to you and yours--and all my friends at Brickset!
On reflection, this year I won't feel even a tiny twinge of guilt about breaking down the AC for parts. Some years I just can't bring myself to scavenge the pieces but that won't be an issue with this particular calendar.