City Advent Calendar - Day 24
Posted by MeganL,
We've made it through 23 days of the advent calendar. There have been some great builds and some not so great builds, some interesting minifigs and only a few builds that were somewhat festive, a Christmas tree, presents, and the excellent reindeer and sleigh from yesterday. It's been traditional in City calendars that a Santa figure appears on the final day, so let's meet who Santa is this year.
Santa is police chief Wheeler. I'm certainly glad that Wheeler wears glasses, as I'm not sure we would recognize him otherwise, since the beard piece covers most of this face. The Santa torso is the same that's been used the last few years, and has some nice printed detail. It appears that Santa is not participating in the the gift exchange, as he's holding a letter, and I'm not sure how that would work with the rest of the characters in the calendar.
Overall thoughts
All the builds fit quite nicely on the placemat provided by the advent calendar, though I'm not sure where to put the minifigs, as they don't quite fit in with the buildings.
There were some great builds in this calendar. I think I liked the vehicles a bit more than the buildings, though I really appreciated that most days had a decent number of pieces for each build. The minifigs were excellent with detailed torso and (in some cases) leg prints. I think my absolute favourite build was yesterday with the miniature reindeer and sleigh.
Reviewing both the City and Friends calendars this year really illustrated to me the piece disparity and how much of a difference it makes each day; I've talked more about that on the Friends calendar.
Overall, I think this calendar depends on your expectations going in. It's the 16th year of the City calendar, so it has to be increasingly difficult for the designer to come up with builds every year that seem fresh. If you were looking just for fun little builds every day, this calendar met that expectation quite well, and there's a good scene at the end of it.
However, many previous calendars have had a holiday theme, and as a result, most expect the City builds to reflect a theme evocative of the season. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has used City advent calendar builds to supplement my own Winter Village display. If you were looking to this calendar in that respect, you would be disappointed. However, the minifigs are still excellent and there are a couple new printed tiles.
Thanks to all of you who have joined me the last 24 days! As always, it's been fun to go on this LEGO journey together, and I've enjoyed all of your comments. Until next year.....
Merry Christmas!
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17 comments on this article
I didn't get one this year but looking at them all in that scene I wish I had. Hopefully they've run out of ideas and do pirates and castle for the next few to reset the ideas department
Thank you Megan for your insights
I read a lot of comments of people who didn’t like the calendar. I bought this one for my almost 2 year old son (can’t start early enough with Lego..), and it was joy day after day. I think City calendars are aimed at young children and not adults and they succeed in their goal. Young children tend to prefer vehicles over.. well over anything I suppose. Thanks for the reviews!
Also those mini builds do look good together. It must be a challenge for the designers to pump out the calendars year after year. They are probably working on next year's even now. I'm thinking a Santa's workshop theme would be fun or a pop up scene with a chimney where you can shoot Santa down and he ends up in a living room with the tree and whatnot while his sleigh is up on the roof... I think I'm over budget:[ Merry Christmas!!
You know, seeing today's entry makes me low-key nostalgic for the '95-era Santa minifigure (1807) I used to have. He was, admittedly, THE most basic, with a classic smiley face, plain torso, light-grey pants, wizard beard and red bandana... but he also had an open backpack/sack like this one does, with space for a tile as a present as here...
Ah well xD
Uhm, what has Freya been drinking? She doesn't seem very alright in that picture...
@mr_Fikou said:
"Uhm, what has Freya been drinking? She doesn't seem very alright in that picture..."
Yeah, she’s...inverted xD
This calendar looks like it has alot of play value for young children.
I would love to see A Christmas Carol themed Advent Calendar!!
Watch out! That tiny little train is going to smash into that giant boat trailer!
@mfg3000:
In years past, they have unveiled the entire set of daily builds for all of their Advent Calendars at New York Toy Fair in February. So if they’re not currently working on those for 2021, they’ve got about a month to crank out the design.
@mr_Fikou:
She’s just got eyes in the back of her head.
Pretty disappointed with this one. We have always got the City calendar as the kids aren’t interested in Star Wars and Harry Potter, but this year they had to be reminded to open it and were quickly bored.
They’ve said they were disappointed with the lack of festive content compared to previous years.
I hope they return to Christmassy builds next year.
Ah, well, count me in as another who was very disappointed with this year's calendar. The mini-builds were very reminiscent of the Star Wars calendar which has never been our favorite for that exact reason. In the past, even when the day's offering was distinctively un-festive (so many cops and robbers!) at least you were able to fill out your lego town if not your holiday village. We definitely missed being able to work the gifts into our display. If it's mini-builds again next year, we'll skip it.
@PurpleDave said:
"Watch out! That tiny little train is going to smash into that giant boat trailer!
@mfg3000:
In years past, they have unveiled the entire set of daily builds for all of their Advent Calendars at New York Toy Fair in February. So if they’re not currently working on those for 2021, they’ve got about a month to crank out the design.
@mr_Fikou:
She’s just got eyes in the back of her head."
Thanks for the info. That's really interesting!
I agree Advent callendars should be more festive.
For me callendar from 2013 was best one in terms of pieces. But this one is one of better ones.
I enjoyed every build and fig. None of builds felt too small ( Friends callendar...), all designs were fun!
My favs? Jeep and the reindeer.
Nice to have a recap of the whole calendar, as it's the first one I didn't buy since 2006! Seeing that nothing could be used to improve a city or furnishing ,and seeing that there are only vehicles that are too big to be yoys is extremely disappointing. 2010 calendar was quite disappointing in this regard, and these small builds are very pointless.
I really miss the 2005-2009 calenars whoch contained many builds made to enhance a town for the whole year, not small builds fot which you don't have a use past February.
This looks great all laid out on the board!
After the disappointment of last year's City Calendar I passed on this one. Watching the daily reveals this year made me glad I resisted buying this one. The only builds I found interesting were the Tree & the Reindeer with sleigh. I should be able to replicate them easily enough without wasting money on this disappointment. I get the appeal for kids but there wasn't enough in this pile of bricks to interest me.
Thanks for all your reviews of this and the Friends advent calendars Megan. It was a lot of fun to check in each day and read your coverage of that day’s surprise builds. Merry Christmas!