Our Advent Countdown begins tomorrow
Posted by Huw,
December commences tomorrow, so our popular and highly anticipated annual Advent Countdown is returning!
This year there are more Advent Calendars than ever. The addition of Disney to the usual lineup brings the total to six.
Our articles about their contents will be spread throughout the day, starting later than in previous years to give those of you in the UK and east of the Greenwich meridian plenty of time to build yours before we publish our articles. The timing will be as follows, although we may move them to fit around news or reviews if needed.
- 11:00 GMT - Disney (MeganL)
- 12:00 - Friends (MeganL)
- 13:00 - City (MeganL)
- 14:00 - Spider-Man (CapnRex101)
- 15:00 - Harry Potter (CapnRex101)
- 16:00 - Star Wars (CapnRex101)
The articles will be spoiler-free as they appear on the homepage, so you can safely visit Brickset before opening your own calendars. Alternatively, if you're a member and are logged in, you can change your news article preferences if you would rather not see our Advent Countdowns at all.
As always, December will be particularly busy here at Brickset with plenty of 2025 news and set reviews moving down the home page quickly, so be sure to visit regularly!
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23 comments on this article
I'm really looking forward to this year's reviews, given there's six of the darn things this year.
I normally collect the City calendars (I had last year's calendar, and really liked it), but I find that they tend to be quite similar, so you can skip a couple of years and not really miss anything.
I don't consider myself a big enough fan to buy the Star Wars or Harry Potters calendars, I don't collect many Friends sets, and the Marvel-themed calendars in the past have been (honestly) terrible. Last year's Marvel calendar was the Interior Furniture Advent Calendar (with occasional appearances by Doctor Strange's cape and an infinity stone or three). So maybe the Spider-themed calendar will surprise us all?
Anyway, this year I'm going to give the Disney Princess calendar a try. Just for something different, but also, the spoilers on the front of the box (gosh, every year, I wish Lego wouldn't give so much away) look really interesting.
I've seen no hints, so far, of our favourite marauding Christmas penguin, but as they say, you'd better watch out...
Built all mine back in September :)
Blimey, there’s six of them this year? Gonna be barely room on the homepage for anything else!
If I'd had the space, I'd have gotten the City and Friends calendars, but I just went with Star Wars for the third year in a row, largely because of one day in particular. Looking forward to seeing the reviews of all of them, especially the new Disney one (because it's a new theme) and the Spider-man one (to see if they get out of the Marvel AC slump, although I don't have my hopes up). There's a part of me that wishes that if they were going to introduce a new calendar, they'd do another non-licensed one, maybe Ninjago, for two reasons. One, because that way there'd be three licensed and three non-licensed. Two, because wouldn't Christmas Ninjago figures be cool?
@Zordboy said:
"I've seen no hints, so far, of our favourite marauding Christmas penguin, but as they say, you'd better watch out..."
Poor Everybody remembers Dreadflipper, but nobody remembers the Pride Pony. Poor guy, gets no respect for keeping the evil penguin in check.
Looking forward to the reviews!
Got my 75395, so I'm ready to go!
One of my favourite Chrismas tradition is to read these calendar review.
Thank you so much for doing this!
There’s a Spider-Man advent calendar now? (Edit: I see it takes the Marvel slot for the calendar.)
Should just be a mega post versus having 6 articles clogging the page each day and pushing down articles I actually want to read
You should just post them all in one article, to save room on the homepage, and so people don't need to scroll so far.
I'm doing 3 this year, City, Star Wars & Harry Potter. The Marvel ones have been awful compared to the rest. Deals have been almost non existent on any of them in my area. Almost missed the Harry Potter one waiting for good deals. The Friends & Disney ones are the only ones you can still find around these parts. The Star Wars one I get for the minifigs since the micro builds end up in the parts bin. I thought the Disney one might be interesting until they went with the micro dolls so I chose to pass on it. Best Friends one was the year they did all the nice ornament builds. Those go on my LEGO tree every year along with the old Bauble builds. Really looking forward to the City & Harry Potter ones this year.
Star Wars Holiday Special :)
I guess I need to stop oversleeping for the next three weeks. I mean, I should probably do that anyways, but...
@TheOtherMike:
Ninjago would be fine for Kai, Zane, and La-Loyd, but Jay, Cole, and Nya don't really fit the color scheme. Also, give us a Batman Advent Calendar!
@karrit:
I really miss the bauble sets. I almost missed one that was only available at the LEGOLAND store locally, but I have all of them including a few of the PABaubles. I also got five copies of the original 3-pack, and just used the baubles from one set to make Beholdernaments. I can see one of them on our Festival of Trees layout, from where I'm typing right now.
I usually buy the Star Wars one, but this year it felt like a disappointment so did go with the City calendar.
@PurpleDave said:
"I guess I need to stop oversleeping for the next three weeks. I mean, I should probably do that anyways, but...
@TheOtherMike:
Ninjago would be fine for Kai, Zane, and La-Loyd, but Jay, Cole, and Nya don't really fit the color scheme. Also, give us a Batman Advent Calendar!
@karrit:
I really miss the bauble sets. I almost missed one that was only available at the LEGOLAND store locally, but I have all of them including a few of the PABaubles. I also got five copies of the original 3-pack, and just used the baubles from one set to make Beholdernaments. I can see one of them on our Festival of Trees layout, from where I'm typing right now."
I'll admit that a DC (yes, I know you said Batman, but he gets enough attention as it is) Advent Calendar would be cool, but I was specifically wishing for an unlicensed calendar. But, the only other option is Dreamzzz, since Monkie Kid is only available online in much of the world. I'm not sure if Classic would work, since those are aimed at a demographic that might need more detailed instructions than Advent Calendars get.
@PurpleDave: I also wish they'd kept doing the bauble sets. I only managed to get 850949, but there are a bunch of the others on my wanted list.
@TheOtherMike:
But think of all the TLBM Batsuits they haven’t actually done yet! They could do a whole calendar, easy, with nothing but Batsuits. Maybe two.
Hi @MeganL and @CapnRex101
I haven't purchased an advent calendar this year.
Last year was a first time in a few years and on 1 December and onwards I was dismayed at opening each door and getting the days contents in a plastic bag. This was all the more concerning because of the imminent move of the CMF series to boxes after the scrapping of the foil bags, along with the much publicised but slow move to paper bags within sets.
If TLG is serious about reducing or eliminating plastic in their product packaging, surely 24 separate plastic bags in a single advent calendar is a bit much and an alternative can be found.
If you agree with my stance on single use plastic please make it known when you publish your daily reviews? Because as LAN members you have the ear of Lego, what good is that if not to raise the reasonable concerns of the fan community?
I'll be contacting Lego myself and expressing the above but I am just one person, I will implore others to do so as well.
Thanks.
Thank you for these reviews. It's been a yearly appointment, and it became part of my Christmas tradition!
@rebelpilot:
I'm sure that, as every set shifts to paper bags, the Advent Calendars will as well. The big complaint many people have made is that the cardboard insert is flimsy, and allows parts (and bags) to drift from one compartment to the next. Some of us store the contents in the box afterwards, and the cardboard insert is an absolute pain. They had an intermediary insert that was formed like an egg carton, but out of something that looked like a biodegradable material. Seems like just as green a solution, but it doesn't have the same issues as the cardboard insert, and some people have even said they or their partners have cut them up to use for planting seedlings. I don't see that happening with the cardboard ones, but at this point I also don't see them going back.
Unfortunately for me, and a few others, the plastic bags are the saving grace in this matter. We build the models inside the bag, never to be removed. It keeps all the contents contained to the correct pocket. That's not going to be possible in paper bags. There's also no way to identify the contents of an individual paper bag, unless they extensively print on it. You can't just put a number on it, or you won't be able to tell which calendar it goes to, which could lead to catastrophic mixups at the factory. They're going to have to factor in all of these issues, and probably more, or they're going to drive away many of their customers in a single year.
Why can't it just be one daily post containing all the advents in it instead of 6 separate posts that clogs the feed?
@strangeworld said:
"I usually buy the Star Wars one, but this year it felt like a disappointment so did go with the City calendar."
I usually buy them too, but this year, they went on sale and then it was impossible to find one, in the US. :(
@alarthame said:
" @strangeworld said:
"I usually buy the Star Wars one, but this year it felt like a disappointment so did go with the City calendar."
I usually buy them too, but this year, they went on sale and then it was impossible to find one, in the US. :("
Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney are the three that I've been able to regularly find in stores even today. I've been able to track down _two_ City calendars, which got clearanced and blew out right as I decided I might like some of the minfiigs. I had to use online stock checkers to find the first, and randomly stumbled on the second.