City Advent Calendar - Day 24

Six minifigures, a baby, a dog, a cat and a plush bunny, with too many sports equipment at the beginning, but great builds at the end. The dog and the train are my favourites too.

Unfortunately what it meant here was ANOTHER toy soldier! Complaint already put in to LEGO though (and we have other Santas so not a disaster!)

I going to say that, overall, this was not a good calendar for me. The final week was good, but everything prior was lacking. I'm not incredibly fond of minifigs per se, so that may influence my opinion, buy I really expect a Lego calendar to have, well, things to actually BUILD (that aren't extremely tiny nanoscale things, that is.) I won't be buying it again next year unless they ramp up the piece count.

Good minifigs with the festive sweaters, but I find it hard to believe that so much of the budget was spent on them that we had to skimp out the rest of the calendar. Stinker the Bunny (yes, we named it Stinker) will live in infamy next to Dr. Strange's cape from the Marvel incident last year. As much as I try to avoid spoilers in an advent calendar, we are going to have to take a closer look at the contents next year before deciding if we will buy it.

That really is quite a lot of remote controls

Thanks Megan, for all your insights on the ACs.

This is simultaneously one of the worst and best City ACs. I really am perplexed. Most of the builds were pretty poor. They aren't very interesting. However, there are a lot of useful accessories, and the minifig prints are fantastic!

I paid $23 for this AC, and that seems about right.

@stevesheriw said:
"Good minifigs with the festive sweaters, but I find it hard to believe that so much of the budget was spent on them that we had to skimp out the rest of the calendar. Stinker the Bunny (yes, we named it Stinker) will live in infamy next to Dr. Strange's cape from the Marvel incident last year. As much as I try to avoid spoilers in an advent calendar, we are going to have to take a closer look at the contents next year before deciding if we will buy it. "

Haha, Stinker! I think you might've coined a new nickname for the bunny fig.

@jhs8swd said:
"Unfortunately what it meant here was ANOTHER toy soldier! Complaint already put in to LEGO though (and we have other Santas so not a disaster!) "

I don’t have an exact count, but if the four basic Santa suits, I’ve now picked up a minimum of ten each. This suit is even available on BAM this year, so the head and beard might be the only parts you’d have to sub in.

Agreed, Stinker and the buggy should have both been in with the baby to make space for another couple of mini-builds. But the family and Mrs Claus figs are excellent.

Honestly shrinkflation has really hit this one, being 50 pieces fewer than last year and 150 fewer than 60303 from 2021. Not only that but only one minifigure had a double sided head and the builds that were included felt sparse. And I get that they are flying the environmental flag but the plastic bags used are thinner and smaller than older calendars, hence should be cheaper to make. Even Santa’s hat no longer comes in its own little bag as it’s done in almost all other years. I don’t want to rant but i’ve been buying the city calendar since 2010 and if this is what next year’s is going to be like then count me out

@shadowwarrior016:
I switched to building in the bag once they switched from the egg carton inserts to the flat cardboard ones, so the pieces won’t get lost. The first year I tried that, I ripped a bag right away. Didn’t have a problem with that at all this year, even though I pinched the bag between parts a few times, and put wands in hands where appropriate. I can’t speak for the bags you’re getting, but the NA bags are same as ever. Except for that fifth table in the HPAC. That thing was a carnival tent.

As for Santa’s hat, it may represent a shift in production location. The original CMF Santa hat was molded in white with red printing added. This continued through last year’s dark-red BAM Santa. This year’s BAM Santa (with the same Santa Hankey torso as this minifig) has a dual-molded hat. I didn’t think to check the hat on this minifig (I didn’t even bother pulling one of the two I got), but if it’s also dual-molded, it’s probably molded in Europe. When they individually bag the parts like that, it typically means they were produced in China, and bulk-shipped to the packing facility. The little bags are meant to keep the parts from being trashed in transit. Particularly when they drop painted deco in favor of dual-molding, the bags aren’t really needed anymore, plus they wouldn’t be bulk shipping these parts anywhere.

Nice Santa!

He may not be super new but he still looks great. I recently picked up 40499 from Target (a couple years late, I know)—it has the first Santa fig I've gotten with the dual-molded boots, which look fantastic on him.

@Lyichir said:
"Nice Santa!

He may not be super new but he still looks great. I recently picked up 40499 from Target (a couple years late, I know)—it has the first Santa fig I've gotten with the dual-molded boots, which look fantastic on him."

Walmart had that set out with a security spider on it. I sent a picture to my LUG saying you get a permanent spot on the Naughty List for stealing Santa.

I'm just going to leave this right here:

https://brickshelf.com/gallery/PurpleDave/Humor/iykyk.jpg

IYKYK.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Lyichir said:
"Nice Santa!

He may not be super new but he still looks great. I recently picked up 40499 from Target (a couple years late, I know)—it has the first Santa fig I've gotten with the dual-molded boots, which look fantastic on him."

Walmart had that set out with a security spider on it. I sent a picture to my LUG saying you get a permanent spot on the Naughty List for stealing Santa."

Hey, at long as you're not on the naughty list of Futurama's Santa.

@PurpleDave: Soooo...the "Sorcer-hare Supreme"...:D