City Advent Calendar - Day 24
Posted by Huw,
There can be only one thing behind today's door, our 8th and final minifigure...
No surprises here today, it's Santa!
He's a very nice minifigure but perhaps slightly disappointingly it's exactly the same as that in th 2017 calendar.
This year, however, he has a sack to carry on his back.rather than in his hand.
It's been an interesting calendar this year, but not spectacular. There have been some cool mini-models, such as the snowmobile on day 15, and some novel ones too, such as the curling stones on day 11. The minifigs have been pretty good, too.
In previous years the calendars have often followed a pattern of a minifigure one day then two related mini-models the next two, and so on. It's a shame that this wasn't the case this year, if only because it would make writing about them much easier!
Anyway, my City Advent reviews have come to an end. I hope you've enjoyed them!
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12 comments on this article
It wasn't a terrible calendar (I really liked that orange snowmobile, and I think it was one of their best snowmen in ages), but it definitely was a bit hit-and-miss. The weakest part for me was absolutely that pretty much every model was pictured on the front of the box.
I liked the grandfather clock, and grandma reading in her rocking chair was pretty cool, too. Oh, and that telescope was fantastic.
Hmmm, somehow my 24 box was a duplicate of the orange snowmobile! Not too impressed.
This calendar has been very disappointing overall. Sure the minifigures were spectacular and the latter half of the calendar was overall better, but the first half..., that catapult, stump, presents and poor ice fort really just says it all doesn't it? It's uninteresting at best.
There were still a lot of nice gifts here though. The minifigures were all above great, and the telescope and snowmobile really shined, along with the furnace. Curling was cool too plus Day 12 with the nice lamp and rocking chair. But that's it. really. The catapult and ice fort look like something that belongs to lego friends, the snowman is so generic, and the stump barely has anything original going for it. And the grandfather clock and fireplace had potential but either looked unfinished or just weird.
My favourite calendar was probably the 2011 because of nostalgia but objectively maybe the 2015 one due to the excellent and original builds. This calendar lacks both. 3/5 at best for this calendar.
Read my review on it for more info:
https://brickset.com/reviews/55791
This is a premium product, yet comes with a duplicate Santa from 2017? A violent disregard for consumers, that.
@Golem25 said:
"This is a premium product, yet comes with a duplicate Santa from 2017? A violent disregard for consumers, that."
"Premium product"? What gave you that idea?
The important thing to note about this Santa is that the torso appears to be the same one that’s used on the Santa Yoda from the X-Mas Wing. I believe the two appearances in City Advent Calendars are the only retail sets that feature this torso, and the only other appearance was maybe one season at Build-a-Minifig. So given the timing it’s actually fortunate that they repeated the 2017 Santa rather than re-repeating the CMF Santa as other City Advents had done.
For me, this Santa's face was still new (beside already appearing in Fun at the Beach), and spare white beard is useful as well.
Also the backpack sack is nice to get as they already have the handheld sack in the Xtra Christmas polybag as an easy way to get more.
I only collected 2018 and 2019 City Calendars, and I have to say even while the 2018 had some nice builds as well , the 2019 was still an improvement as a whole.
-2018 had 2 less minifigures (not counting snowmen)
-2018 had a lot of micro-builds , and the Ice Machine and Cupcake Cart (with fake wheels) were weird builds.
-2018 had 79 more parts but a lot of those were 1x1 sized, the upside of that however is more extra spare parts for small builds.
-2019 had multiple useful furniture builds.
-2019 had 2 more minifigures which overall were better equipped with winter themed headgear/scarf
-2019 snowman tophat was nice, but the 2018 white torso also looked great.
-2019 Calendar was €5 cheaper base price
So overall, 2018 had more, but smaller parts, and microscale builds, while 2019 focused more on minifigures and furniture.
I do hope LEGO at some point will make a in-house Pirates or Castle Calendar again.
@Rob42 said:
" @Golem25 said:
"This is a premium product, yet comes with a duplicate Santa from 2017? A violent disregard for consumers, that."
"Premium product"? What gave you that idea?"
How much does this calendar retail for? 30 USD / 30 EUR / 25 GBP? I consider LEGO to be a premium brand and expect quality befitting of such a standard - especially in what isn't exactly the smallest set. Stuffing it with a leftover from two years ago is very poor form.
@golem25
On that logic no Lego sets should reuse any existing prints if at least mid priced. Given you are referring to a named character with a pretty well defined appearances I don’t see why there is a need to redesign it year on year?
Thanks very much @Huw for the great City advent calendar daily reviews.
As City calendars go this to me was a bit Meh overall. Perhaps they have simply run out of good ideas after so many years.
Huw, thank you so much for your always-enjoyable sequence of reviews, which is by now almost as sure a sign of the season as carols on the radio!