Holiday gift guide: under $25 staff picks
Posted by Huw,
To round-off our first week of holiday gift guide articles, the Brickset team make their choices in the under $25 category.
A total of 168 sets qualify in this price-bracket so it's not been an easy choice!
CapnRex101: 75939 Dr. Wu's Lab: Baby Dinosaurs Breakout
DOTS provides an outstanding selection of comparatively inexpensive products and I think anything from the range would be an excellent gift, depending upon the intended recipient.
However, when selecting one item, I could not look beyond 75939 Dr. Wu's Lab: Baby Dinosaurs Breakout. The emergence of new LEGO dinosaurs is always exciting and these infant animals are both fantastic, depicting an Ankylosaurus and Triceratops. Additionally, their availability in such a small set is undoubtedly appreciated.
The accompanying laboratory is overshadowed by its dinosaur inhabitants, although I am pleased with the functionality and detail. The articulated arm and egg incubator are particularly fun and this set even contains the updated mosquito in amber brick! You can read my review here.
MeganL: 41421 Baby Elephant Jungle Rescue
I love the DOTS range, and if I was recommending a gift for an adult, I'd certainly choose something in that theme for a LEGO gift, either the 41913 Bracelet Mega Pack, or the lovely 41915 Jewellery Box with all those wonderful purple hues.
But for a single gift, I have to go with 41421 Baby Elephant Jungle Rescue. The partnership between LEGO and National Geographic is fantastic, and this is a great entry level set. Detractors from Friends complain about the stereotypical roles for the Friends, but the entire Jungle subtheme is filled with stories of Friends taking things into their own hands and saving the day on their own.
In this case, it's saving an adorable baby elephant from both a swamp and a scary spider. For $20 you get two minidolls, a baby elephant, and a great story, and you can't go wrong with that.
Huw: 60253 Ice-Cream Truck
I would normally pick the year's Creator 3-in-1 animal set, but I was not that impressed with 31102 Fire Dragon so instead I will nominate 60253 Ice-Cream Truck.
The City theme has a lot of potential for a varied selection of sets and occasionally, among all the fire and police vehicles, something new and interesting does come along.
This year it was this delightful and colourful ice cream van, the first one to be released in the City theme. It's a bit oversized, but it's packed with fun and realistic details, and plenty of icy treats inside. You can read my review here.
If you'd like to get involved in this series of articles in the coming weeks, find out how to here.
61 likes
14 comments on this article
I almost never look at City sets since I don't really care about them all that much, but I have to say that I love that ice cream truck. I might actually end up getting it. Honestly I can't think of a lot of under $25 sets from this year that I really liked, if I had to go with one I'd probably pick the Mandalorian Battle Pack (which was already featured in an article a few days ago).
Ice Cream truck is not as good as the 60150 Pizza Van but a very good choice for a holiday gift
Ice-cream truck is "a bit oversized", it's not 8-wide, then it would be oversized for this City
I’m not sure if this was already mentioned in previous articles, but the Hogwarts Room of Requirement from the Harry Potter theme is considerably a great choice too. :)
Huw mentioned the lack of soft serve machines in 60253. In the US, Good Humor trucks do not have them. The Good Humor company developed the ice cream bar and then iterated on it, selling preformed cones and sundaes.
I’d rather the safari vehicle instead of the truck, but then again that’s already been chosen. Good picks though.
This time last year, I remember being super-jazzed for the Ice Cream truck, but the more I looked at it (after it came out), the less I liked it. There's too many stickers, and the colours are just all over the place. But I did get a massive kick out of the Safari Truck.
MeganL, agree with the Dots recommendation. The desk organizer can even work in an office -- or for kids telecommuting to class and needing a fidget toy to stay focused
My picks for under $25-
ANY of the Storybook Adventures. Beautiful diorama playsets, excellent accessories, parts and you can fold them up and carry wherever you go. Kids will love them (me too!). Plus they look great on the shelf folded up like books.
ANY of the Arcade Pods. Another set with a very cool arcade cabinet case with excellent weapons and accessories.
And the Thanos Mech. Great fun mech for any fan of the Marvel Universe. Excellent Thanos fig and the mech is a sturdy action figure for play. Of note, if you buy two of them and with some extra parts you can mod this to a more robust figure. Check out Mishima Productions on YouTube for an easy mod he put together.
^ Couldn’t agree more about the Thanos mech :~D . Check out: https://brickset.com/article/54526/holiday-gift-guide-marvel-mechs
I am surprised that 42102 mini Claas has not been mentioned (yet): From what I sense this would be the highest rated technic set in 2020 releases.
I consider it also as the best small technic set from the past years.
( @Huw: Edit function seems to remove / drop the "" indicator for set numbers)
@bricks_and_boxes said:
"I’m not sure if this was already mentioned in previous articles, but the Hogwarts Room of Requirement from the Harry Potter theme is considerably a great choice too. :)"
I did consider it for my article, but thought that 3 sets was enough so it was left out. Still I agree that for this price point -together with 75939 mentioned here- it's a great choice.
The Ice Cream Truck and Safari Van are some of the best non-emergency service City sets; a rare treat!
If I got the 60253 Ice Cream Truck, I think I'd leave all the stickers off except for the menu and the "only the best" on the side(s). That creepy popsicle with shades reminds me of the Unikitty! theme/show...