Friends Advent Calendar - Day 1
Posted by MeganL,
It’s that time of year again! LEGO Friends once again has an advent calendar, and once again I have the privilege of sharing the journey of the next 24 days with you.
Over the last two years the Friends calendars had at least some of the gifts were ornaments that were meant to be hung on the tree. We had a purple theme going on last year - there were many days where purple was incorporated in the build, many times for no apparent reason. I'm still shuddering from the year before that when we had a minimalist calendar, with the one infamous day where the build was a grand total of three pieces - a turntable and a microphone.
According to the set description, there are three themes to the builds - Emma's bedroom, Santa's workshop, and a winter wonderland. Here's hoping none of those themes are minimalist!
I'll be doing the City advent calendar as well, so we should have some fun comparing the two. But let's take a closer look at the Friends calendar first, and see what's behind the first door.
The front of the box show the Friends in the middle of holiday festivities - baking, wrapping presents, and decorating. There are two cute little elves shown - perhaps we will meet them over the next 24 days. The front does say that there are three surprise figures this year, so perhaps that solves two third of that mystery. Emma is pictured as well, suggesting we will continue to have just a solitary Friend in the calendar this year.
The back of the box show the Friends decorating the tree, and the elves make an appearance again. I've only just noticed that every Friend is wearing the same sweater as she wore on last year's advent calendar. Zobo and some of the pets are included as well - Santa Zobo from last year was one of the best builds.
After an absence of two years, we have a placemat on which to place the builds. There are areas for each of the three themes - Emma's bedroom in the top half, Santa's workshop on the lower left, and the winter wonderland in the area in between. It looks like Santa's workshop might get a little crowded. Four numbers are festooned with ribbons - 1, 6, 15 and 24. At least we won't wait long to find out what the ribbons mean!
Speaking of which, let's open door number 1.
As is traditional for Friends calendar, we have a Friend behind door number 1. This year it's Emma, dressed in pajamas. Originally I thought this was a curious choice of clothing considering that it's winter - why would she have a sleeveless top? But the printed design of the sleeping moon and the stars make it pretty clear that Emma's in her PJs. Her accessory is a hairbrush, which makes sense, especially if she's just getting up in the morning.
Her torso is nicely detailed and it's new to this calendar. Her pants have been seen only one before and may explain her footwear. These pants were previously seen in 41371 Mia's Horse Trailer, which is not exactly a sleeping activity. So, I'm assuming for this calendar Emma is wearing some long fuzzy slippers that happen to be in her signature colour.
A minidoll is pretty standard, so it's hard to say where things will go from here. If we're going to have a purple theme, though, we're off to a decent start.
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I think the lower left part of the display is Emma's bedroom, as there is a palette and a photo camera. And the other one is Santa's workshop.
And since my daughter is called Emma, I'm overly delighted she is the start this year :)
(She's only 1,5 year old, so wouldn't appriciate the concept now, but still it's nice.)
No spoiler in my comment, but if the minidoll is OK with her nice pajama, it is not the same with the accessory : just an air brush, seriously? Again, I won't spoil anything about others themes calendars, but it is quite cheap for a day one IMO.
I really like her pyjama top.
It would have been cool if Emma had had a paint brush and palette and she were actually painting Santa's workshop from her imagination and that part of the scene represented the inner workings of her little minidoll mind. Those swirls could have represented the transition into her imagination.
When are they going to turn those jumpers into actual pieces?
You know, I'm pretty envious of her pretty glamourous hair when she's clearly just gotten out of bed. Mine does not look that good, first thing in the morning, hair brush or not.
Ribbons apparently mean minidolls? I mean, there are four, with Emma behind the first, and there are supposed to be three more minidolls in the set including Day 24.
@Yooha:
I agree. Lower left is (apparently) Emma's signature color, and the upper portion has a bunch of Christmas paraphernalia.