It’s Bad Santa!

Wow Christmas sets have come a long way in a few years.

When I see sets of that era (late 90s early 00s), I always ask myself: what was the morale of the employees back then?

Lego Christmas presents have gotten smaller, haven't they?

Christmas in the middle of the summer

Oh, Santa! What have they done to you?

Ugh, the gift shape. It’s clearly not a LEGO set. What kind of Christmas is this?

So, where is the Baby Jesus?

Man, late-run GALIDOR got really weird.

Having Santa apparently just straight up be a stocking is a bold interpretation

Hmmm...in the word of the immortal song: "So this is Christmas; and look what you've done..."

Also needs to be some kinda' PSA: This is what happen to someone on a 'Cookies and Milk' diet...

Lastly...maybe this isn't the 'real' Santa Claus, but a...rocking horse...'bop 'em, sock em'' version? Either case is just wrong...:| (:))

Christmas starts a little earlier each year!

Santa seems to be REALLY happy to see whoever he is seeing ... ;-)

@TheWackyWookiee said:
"So, where is the Baby Jesus?"

It does look like he is pregnant, but aren't you mixing up the story of Christmas?

Zombie Santa! "Ho, ho, ho, braaaaiiinnnnsss..."

Well now we know who ate all the pies.

@bookmum said:
"Well now we know who ate all the pies."
I think you'll find that's milk and cookies ;-)

Despite the set not being overly interesting, I'm enamored by the packaging art. It keeps to the standard Make and Create design by having the pixellated texture on the ground and the sky, while the glow in the distance (as seen on set packaging like LJXMAS02) is moved to the sky to become a star. A small and obscure set, but the artwork had some thought put into its design.

This is obviously intended to be a set of inflatable yard decorations for your minifigures' homes. It can serve as a companion/add on to yesterday's RSOTD 1854.
Most of these brick built Santas and raindeers etc. are decorations for minifigures to display.

@bananaworld:
Now, now, nanny, I hear some people find painting too challenging when it’s not of the “by numbers” variety as well. I’ve built with both Bionicle and System, and they each have their strengths and weaknesses. Bionicle parts work better for organic shapes than System parts. Maybe it’s just that your way of thinking is too rigid to make the transition.

@BulbaNerd4000:
Huh? It looks about the right size to be a pair of tubs with the 2x3 stud pattern lids stacked on top of each other and wrapped as a single gift.

@NotProfessorWhymzi:
I think Santa ate it...

@anthony_davies:
Clearly you’ve spent too much time hanging upside-down. The blood has pooled in your head and impaired your thinking. Brickset is based in the northern hemisphere, where most of the people are. Summer. The Olympics agree.

Ah, the good old days, when the designers could put out a finished product in less than 120 seconds.

@MCLegoboy said:
"Well, can't deny it's Christmas, but why is Santa doing the dance from Michael Jackson's Thriller?"

Well at least he’s not kissing mommy!

@PurpleDave said:
"(...)Maybe it’s just that your way of thinking is too rigid to make the transition."
Hmm, you could be right, Purpy my boy! I've fiddled with a huge load of Bionicle bits (sorted from a bigger Technic job-lot) and didn't find it nearly as satisfying as snapping System together. Strangely, there seemed to be more than one (disparate & barely-but-not-really-compatible) system within the Bionicle system; that and the type of plastic made it all feel 'cheap' and (hate on me) not LEGO.

Having said that, I love Technic (despite it being further from System these days), but don't enjoy K'Nex, though very much enjoy the nephews' Stickle Bricks. My job involves lots of nuts 'n' bolts & chains 'n' sprockets, but I find Meccano too long-winded in achieving functionality, so maybe I am just fussy when it comes to construction toys!

"nanny"
OMG, it's funny you say that! One of the aforementioned nephews, during the name-confusion phase of toddlerhood, called me "Nanny", and one grandmother "Uncle". Hilarity ensued.

@AustinPowers said:
" @bookmum said:
"Well now we know who ate all the pies."
I think you'll find that's milk and cookies ;-) "
Nah, it was reindeer burgers.

This shows how far LEGO has come when making these sets/polybags. Initially it was only a set or two. Now there is an entire theme with Winter Village and MANY promotional sets. All of which are full of details and complex builds. Also, has promoting your own ideas on LEGO Ideas always been allowed?

Ah yes, the best santa. All jokes aside, it's nice that you get both santa, a present and a tree here. They easily could have just done one of those and kept it at that. Now you have (limited) play value

@sjr60:
I had reindeer sausage a couple times in Alaska. It was pretty good. No burgers, though.

@TheEpicLuke:
Explain what you mean by “promoting your own ideas in LEGO Ideas”?

@Binnekamp:
That really depends on what you want it for. If all you want is a single copy and nothing else, sure. But several years ago I was able to snag five copies of 10069 for cheap (a dealer at a massive hobby train show just wanted to get rid of what little LEGO product he had on hand, and there were a dozen LUGs, LTCs, and misc AFOL groups taking up 40k square feet with LEGO displays, so he asked if anyone was interested). I took every part from those five trees, and nothing else, and built a single tree that’s bigger than the one in 40338 (and then added decorations using other parts).

Now, I built every similar-looking Santa that came in a bauble ornament, and I got four extra copies of 852744, but that leaves me with 12 of these Santa face bricks that I have zero use for. And I think I’ve only raided one 3-pack for any of the other parts so far (I got them just for the bauble shells). I really don’t have any interest in acquiring even more Santa face bricks.

Also, LJXMAS03 is messed up. Just though you should know. I stumbled upon that while looking up the first tree set number, and thought everyone might appreciate a second dose of nightmare fuel.

@PurpleDave said:
" @sjr60:
I had reindeer sausage a couple times in Alaska. It was pretty good. No burgers, though.

@TheEpicLuke:
Explain what you mean by “promoting your own ideas in LEGO Ideas”?

@Binnekamp:
That really depends on what you want it for. If all you want is a single copy and nothing else, sure. But several years ago I was able to snag five copies of 10069 for cheap (a dealer at a massive hobby train show just wanted to get rid of what little LEGO product he had on hand, and there were a dozen LUGs, LTCs, and misc AFOL groups taking up 40k square feet with LEGO displays, so he asked if anyone was interested). I took every part from those five trees, and nothing else, and built a single tree that’s bigger than the one in 40338 (and then added decorations using other parts).

Now, I built every similar-looking Santa that came in a bauble ornament, and I got four extra copies of 852744, but that leaves me with 12 of these Santa face bricks that I have zero use for. And I think I’ve only raided one 3-pack for any of the other parts so far (I got them just for the bauble shells). I really don’t have any interest in acquiring even more Santa face bricks.

Also, LJXMAS03 is messed up. Just though you should know. I stumbled upon that while looking up the first tree set number, and thought everyone might appreciate a second dose of nightmare fuel."

The post is stating to support their product on Ideas in the very end. I was wondering if that was something people are allowed to do on this platform.

@bananaworld:
OMG, it’s funny you say that! Because a week ago:

https://brickset.com/article/61767/random-set-of-the-day-jedi-starfighter-with-hyperdrive-booster-ring

...I posted a response to you asking if you could beat the nearly six years I’d worked professionally with ABS, or if you could explain how the bromine that’s added to ABS as a flame retardant can chemically react with the chemicals in ABS without involving chemistry. I never got a response, so I figured I’d take another shot at it.

Regarding the Bionicle parts, there absolutely were two systems that had little to do with each other besides the use of ball and socket joints. One was the peak evolution of what started with Throwbots, and the other was the CCBS that was carried over from Hero Factory (and later unsuccessfully used to try to get constraction lines going for DC, Marvel, and SW/DW. Within the former, there were several instances where groups of molds were created to accommodate a specific play function for one batch of sets. For any System theme, that would have been contributing to their big annual losses, but Bionicle payed for itself, paid for a new production line so they could keep up with demand for Bionicle stuff without just cancelling every other theme, and turned enough profit to keep the company from going under due to the losses incurred on production of the various System themes.

As for “not being LEGO”, and “feeling cheap”, the early Bionicle stuff was exclusively made in Denmark and Switzerland because of the tolerances were so much stricter compared to System bricks that they got preferential treatment. The molds were cut in Germany and Switzerland for the same reason. Clikits is what they sent to China for production. System parts were possibly being made in Mexico and some of the former Soviet nations by then as well, because they were less critical to the company’s bottom line. I’m not saying they didn’t have a few hiccups, but that’s why they wanted to keep everything close to home where a problem could be corrected ASAP instead of perhaps seeing months of production before they even learn that there’s an issue.

Later Bionicle sets, even from before the CCBS run, did start to drift in a CCBS-ward direction, with large shells comprising significant parts of the build instead of solid Technic-derived gearboxes and liftarms. And as the theme increasingly shifted from generic parts that were useful enough to be included in multiple waves of sets, to parts that were highly specialized for a single group of characters, they did lose some fans. Some of them also aged out, which is a different matter.

But, as I said, I have experience building in both systems. Between the eight times I’ve attended Brickworld Chicago, one of the five MOCs that has been nominated for a Best Of category was almost entirely built of Bionicle parts (plus a few basic Technic connectors). And of those five, the one that actually won it’s category has three Bionicle parts on it. When I display at a Brickworld Expo, the two banquet tables I fill with dragons, SW characters, and TMNT characters that are all built from Bionicle parts are usually the most popular stuff I display. And that’s from someone who grew up on System sets and really only spent a few years building with Bionicle parts. I see stuff pop up from people who grew up on nothing but Bionicle, and, and I see people who feel that towns full of 4-wide go-carts are peak LEGO disparaging the one theme that kept their favorite company solvent, and my head can’t shake sufficiently enough without sending me to the hospital.

@TheEpicLuke said:
"The post is stating to support their product on Ideas in the very end. I was wondering if that was something people are allowed to do on this platform. "

It's kind of an in-joke. Huw, the admin, set up a bot named after himself, Huwbot, to generate the Random Set of the Day automatically each day. Huwbot has since become kind of 'a thing', where people see trends in the random choices and attribute them to the bot's preferences; to the point where there was a contest to build a physical version of him. The winning entry was submitted to Lego Ideas; and, in the spirit of the bot having personality, there was that addendum added to every RSotD post of Huwbot 'pleading' to be voted for.

But yeah, the Huwbot posts are (directly or indirectly, depending on how much sentience you attribute to Huwbot!) the work of the site admin. Huw also does articles promoting other people's Ideas projects sometimes, too, so it's not unheard of ^^

Should not have opened this page before going to sleep. That is going to haunt my dreams! Who hurt you Santa???

@ThatBionicleGuy :
Oh, Huwbot long predates RSotD. This has only been going on 2-3 years. Huwbot has been posting site traffic articles, sale notification articles, and any other site content that happens on a consistent enough basis that it can be automated.

Oh god, flashbacks. I definitely have this somewhere.