Advent 2020

2020 was the year I chose to only do the City Advent Calendar – no Friends, Star Wars, or Harry Potter. I wrote about that decision in a separate post. As usual, each post was originally a separate blog entry, starting with Day 1, and continuing with a daily post about that day’s advent models. However, to clean up the site, I’ve condensed all those daily posts to a single post per year. Here’s the 2020 edition.

Day 1

The first day of this year’s City calendar is a micro version of a LEGO set: 60266 Ocean Exploration Ship.

For comparison, here’s an image of the full size model it’s based on (LEGO set 60266 Ocean Exploration Ship; image via Brickset):

The Advent calendar box folds open to reveal a playmat consisting of some roads and a little dock you can put the ship at:

Pretty much every year for as long as I have had this blog I’ve been posting the LEGO Advent Calendar entries each day during December 1st through 24th. While in the past I’ve done blog posts about all the Advent calendars that LEGO made that year, this year I’m stepping back and just doing City. See Why I’m only doing the City Advent Calendar this year for more on that.

The model itself is pretty impressive for its size. Comprising a whopping 22 parts (if you count the 5 extra 1x1s that are enclosed), it makes a ship that might fit in nicely on a Micropolis layout. The cargo crane is represented, and actually moves up and down. The running lights are massive for the scale, but at least they have green on the starboard and red on the port sides. I still remember back in my childhood when I’d build LEGO Classic Space sets, being annoyed they had red running lights on both wingtips when clearly the starboard side should be green…

Day 2

For the second day of this year’s City Advent calendar we get our first minifigure.

The head is double-sided, and on the back you can see his eyes without the dark glasses.

The torso print is a Christmas sweater with a picture of the face of teddy bear wearing a police hat, pixelated to look like knitting.

And on the back side of the sweater you can see more knit pattern printing.

On the side of the box you can see all of the characters in this year’s Advent calendar set, and according to that this is Duke Detain, a police officer from the LEGO City Adventures TV series, which I’ve never seen. The teddy bear is Cubby, Duke’s childhood teddy bear and imaginary friend. It looks like this year’s Advent calendar features characters from that show in much the same way that the Star Wars and Harry Potter are based on those movies.

In case you aren’t up to speed on the TV show either, here’s a preview
of the second season of it, which introduces all these characters.

It looks like LEGO is really leaning into the police themes this year, which I think is really unfortunate. The TV show has a police theme, and they’ve just recently announced 2021’s modular building to be a police station (set 10278). I know LEGO is a Danish company, so they may not be as tuned in to the American zeitgeist, but in this country it feels pretty tone deaf to be doing that at this time, after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests against police brutality in this country and around the world.

Of course, these figures are also all yellow, which to most people translates as the White (Caucasian) race, so I suppose we don’t have to worry about Officer Detain killing any Black minifigures in custody. The LEGO City has always been officially race-neutral, with every minifigure from their in-house themes being yellow rather than flesh toned, which according to LEGO means that there just are no races among LEGO minifigures. They don’t see any issue with Black and Brown skinned kids being unable to find characters that look like them to play with. Only the minifigures that are based on real people (or real actors playing roles) have flesh toned skin, and remarkably few of those are brown in color. LEGO Friends does have flesh-toned (including various shades of skin) minidolls, at least.

Of course Denmark is a different place than the USA, and it is much more racially homogeneous there, but I would expect a global company to be more sensitive to the feelings of customers in its biggest market, where race is a huge issue, especially this year and especially with regards to the police.

I don’t want to make this blog be about politics, but when I see people’s basic human rights being denied, I feel obligated to say something, and to call out the LEGO company when I think they can and should do better about these issues. In an earlier post, Why I’m only doing the City Advent Calendar this year, I spoke out about the need to support transgender rights, and in May I posted my Black Lives Matter sign (a repost of my 2016 original post about that model) which stands in the front window of my house proudly. Black lives really do matter, and I support the movement to defund police, and I think LEGO’s use of the police theme in these sets and the TV show are a mistake.

Why am I boycotting the Harry Potter sets but not these City police ones? The issue I have with J. K. Rowling is based on her personal bigotry and actions that are actively harming transgender women, and my desire not to give her whatever fraction of the money spent on such items she gets as royalties. LEGO’s City police models are more passively harmful, ignoring the issue rather than actively making it worse, but at least the money I spend on them isn’t going into the pockets of someone who is actively speaking out in a racist way.

Day 3

Our third model from this year’s LEGO City Advent Calendar continues the police theme from Day 2 with a very small model of a police station.

It’s quite a few parts for a single model at 25, if you include the extras:

As I mentioned in Day 2, I’m not a big fan of the police these days, and think that LEGO should have shifted in a different direction with City this year. That said, the 1×1 tile with the police shield is a nice printed part.

The set includes 6 headlight bricks and lots of 1×1 parts, and is a nice intro to microscale building, though not a very big building. I’m not sure what the value of the wedge plate is, and hopefully we’ll get its mirror image piece on a later day, since they’re best used in matched pairs usually.

Day 4

On the 4th day of our City Advent adventure, we get a cute little pickup truck.

Here’s a view of it from the back.

The truck is made from 22 parts, if you include the spares, which is continuing the trend so far for these models of intricate microscale models, not unlike the way Star Wars calendars usually do. Scale for these models is all over the map though; the truck is about as big as the police station and the ship!

The tires for the truck are made using the 1×1 round plate with hollow studs, which is an incredibly useful part and any time I get more of them it makes me happy. Also, we can fit the spares in the truck bed…

Day 5

Day 5’s LEGO City Advent Calendar entry gives us our second minifigure.

This is Harl Hubbs (what a name!) from the LEGO City Adventures TV show, according to the box. He’s holding a stick of dynamite, but I thought that was Daisy Kaboom’s thing. Anyway, he’s got double sided printing also–here is a view showing the back of the head and torso:

Note that he’s wearing the utility belt that was designed for the LEGO Batman sets. Not sure what that part could be used for, but I guess it’s nice to have it in more colors.

Day 6

Day 6 in the LEGO City Advent Calendar is another micro model, this time an Octan gas station.

This time we get 18 pieces if you include the 4 extras. The color scheme is classic LEGO Octan, but they missed an opportunity by not printing the Octan logo on the 1×1 white tile.

Octan has been the fictional oil company featured in myriad LEGO sets over the years, and most prominently in The LEGO Movie it was the company that President Business ran.

Did you know that there’s an actual Octan gas company in Russia? Or at least there was a few years ago, anyway…

Day 7

Day 7 in the LEGO City Advent Calendar gives us another mini model, a helicopter this time.

I’m sure this is meant to be a police chopper, given the overall theme of the City Adventures TV show, but I’m going to willfully pretend it’s a traffic news reporter or something. I like the way the propeller is attached: they used a Technic half-pin pushed onto the 1×1 round tile with post, and then the blades spin freely on the half-pin.

Day 8

Do you have your Christmas tree up yet? I got my artificial tree and boxes of ornaments out of the closet but haven’t set them up yet. The LEGO City Advent Calendar’s Christmas tree is here though…

This is pretty much standard fare for LEGO Advent calendar trees. The central core is made with 1×1 bricks with studs on all sides (“Travis bricks”) and each side of the tree is identical except for some variation on color for the lights (red on two sides, yellow on the others). You can see how it’s done by looking at the instructions:

These instructions on the LEGO Advent calendars sometimes can get really tricky. Instead of multi-step instructions as with normal LEGO sets, you just get one image to work from. And you can see from this that you almost have to guess what’s going to go on the “back” sides, but if you really squint you can kind of make out the hint of yellow and red visible around the edges from the back sides. These models are sometimes more like solving a puzzle than building from instructions, which I find more enjoyable but I imagine small children may find it frustrating. However, when I was a kid, there was a lot more of a challenge building regular sets – if you look at the Classic Space sets from the late 1970s and early 1980s for example, those instructions often were a bit of a puzzle to spot the new pieces and where they went, and it wasn’t unusual to have to place multiple pieces on top of each other within a single step. So I guess if I could do it when I was a kid, then it’s fine?

Day 9

Can you believe we’re already on day 9 of the LEGO City Advent Calendar? Did you complete your Christmas shopping yet? With the pandemic still raging strong, and we’re on stay-at-home orders again where I live, online shopping is where it’s at. Make sure to allow for shipping delays! Anyway here’s Day 9’s model, a pair of wrapped gifts:

This same design is used in just about every LEGO Advent calendar. It’s really simple. The bottom is a row of 1×2 plates, then a 2×3 plate, then a jumper plate and tiles to match the colors of the bottom plate. It’s effective, but not very creative to just use the same design so often. Anyway, they look nice with Day 8’s tree:

I have a couple of large LEGO sets I’m getting myself for Christmas that just arrived last week (Black Friday shopping) but I’m holding off on building them until after Christmas even though I’m not bothering to wrap them. What LEGO sets are you getting yourself for Christmas this year, or hoping others will get for you?

Day 10

We’re into double digits already, and day 10 of the LEGO City Advent Calendar is another minifigure.

This looks like firefighter Freya McCloud, though she’s also carrying a police badge, so that’s confusing.

It’s a double-sided print, so here’s a
showing the backs of the head and torso.

Day 11

Day 11 of the LEGO City Advent Calendar is a little fire truck.

Is this a toy truck for Freya to play with, or a scale model of her truck? You be the judge.

Day 12

Time sure flies, especially in December. At least that’s not different in 2020. Day 12 of the LEGO City Advent Calendar is a cute micro scale train.

I think this one has the most parts yet, with 25 (if you count the large number of bonus 1×1 parts they include).

Here are close ups of the individual parts – locomotive with tender…

…and the carriage…

These trains would fit in nicely in a Micropolis train layout. One of our BayLUG members, Zonker Harris, has been working on trains for Micropolis very much like these, using the minifigure roller skates as wheel bogies.

Day 13

Day 13 gives us another one of those buildings, a bank.

Like the previous buildings (Day 3 & Day 6) this one is built on the 1×4 wedge plate. I’m happy to report that we are getting both the right and left varieties of them in the set.

Here’s a closer view of Day 13’s model. I especially like the little tree.

Day 14

The 14th entry from the LEGO City Advent Calendar is a monster truck. Day 14 already? That’s just 10 days to go! Better get busy shopping on Amazon (with my affiliate link, or your favorite Amazon Smile charity)!

It’s a nice little model, and the use of the tireless LEGO wheels reminds me a bit of Bigfoot with dual tires. Doesn’t have much to do with Christmas (or cities) though.

Day 15

Day 15’s model looks to be a police SUV.

It looks a bit more like an ambulance, but I think the blue light on top says police to me.

I kind of like these little vehicles. They’re a little too big to go with the buildings from this set — frankly, the scales of these models are all over the place — but for this scale it’s a nice design, and I appreciate that we get more hollow-stud 1×1 round plates in it for the wheels. I think I’d like the “nose” to be a little shorter, personally, though for the size it’s a pretty good representation of the SUV shape

Day 16

For day 16 of the LEGO City Advent Calendar we get another minifigure. I think this is Daisy Kaboom.

Not sure why the baddie is the one holding the handcuffs? Anyway, this is a new (to me, anyway) hairpiece, with a cool dash of color on one side. Here’s another angle:

And the back of both head and torso are also printed, so here’s a shot with the hair removed from the back.

Day 17

The 17th door of our LEGO City Advent Calendar reveals a miniature airplane model.

It’s pretty clever to make an airplane this small. This reminds me of the tiny models in the Star Wars Advent Calendar. The wings are pieces formerly used as fangs or claws, and the horizontal stabilizer is a Batarang. The propeller is from the propeller hat minfigure first introduced in 2019, but in black instead of yellow:

Day 18

Day 18 gives us a nice little blue car.

I love this shade of blue, and it’s nice to get a few parts in it, though it’s not quite enough to build much with. I am kind of liking this scale of building, though – I do a lot of Micropolis, but there’s not really any way to represent people at that scale. At the scale of this car though, we could probably build models with quite a bit of detail but still get some of the benefit of building in a smaller than minifigure scale. What would we call it, miniopolis?

Day 19

Day 19 of the LEGO City Advent Calendar is another cop.

This time it’s Rooky Partnur, I think. What a name. Anyway, I don’t like cops so I don’t have much nice to say about it, and I especially don’t like that she’s wearing a flak vest and helmet. I would just point out that LEGO’s produced a new face shield for the helmet, but I think the nose notch means it wouldn’t be useful for space helmets. The only nice thing I can say is I’m glad they have a female character, though apparently she’s only a sidekick.

I like the pineapple though I have no idea why she has one.

Here’s a back
of the torso. The head doesn’t have printing on the back, so I didn’t remove the helmet.

Day 20

Can you believe it’s already day 20 of Advent? Just 5 more days until Christmas! Day 20’s LEGO City Advent Calendar model looks like a semitrailer tractor truck.

This is another addition to our 2-wide vehicle fleet. Will we get a trailer for it in Day 21?

Day 21

Day 21 falls on the winter solstice, with the longest night of the year. Day 21’s model from the LEGO City Advent Calendar is a trailer for Day 20’s truck.

Here are the two models together to form the truck and trailer. What will be loaded on that flatbed?

Day 22

We’re really getting down to the wire! Day 22 of the LEGO City Advent Calendar is a a motorboat.

The boat features two powerful motors, which you can see well in this rear view:

And of course it fits nicely on the trailer we got in Day 21, towed by the truck from the 20th:

Day 23

It’s the day before Christmas Eve, and Rudolph is already on the job in the LEGO City Advent Calendar model for the 23rd.

Like the train we saw earlier in Day 12, the parts don’t attach together, they are just placed near each other. The brick-built reindeer is a really nice design for the scale, and the sleigh rides on 4 minifigure ice skates. It only has two presents in it yet – will more come in Day 24? Just one more entry left in the Advent calendar!

Day 24

As is customary, the 24th and final day of the LEGO City Advent Calendar is Santa Claus.

Here is a view of the back. He has a gift in the pouch on his back.

Under the bag you can see printing on the back of the torso, with a candy cane tucked into his belt. There’s no printing on the back of the head. He’s built with two things around his neck: the bag and the beard.

With the beard and bag removed you can see the front printing better. The face print shows that this is actually Wheeler from the LEGO City Adventures TV show in a Santa suit.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you’ve enjoyed following along with the LEGO City Advent Calendar this year. Tune in Boxing Day for a recap of the models and parts in this year’s set.

Recap

Merry Christmas! The Advent season is over, and it’s time to take a look at what we got. Here are all the models arranged on the playmat / box lid:

Let’s take a couple of closer views of the models on the playmat. It’s pretty silly, since the minifigures tower over the vehicles, which in turn are way too big for the buildings…

There were 6 minifigures in all:

This year’s calendar included a nice array of 2-stud-wide cars and trucks. I think this is an interesting scale to explore, since it lets you include a lot more detail than with Micropolis, but doesn’t eat up parts the way minifigure scale or other larger scales do.

There were only a few models that were very Christmassy (Santa Claus also appeared above with the other minifigures):

We ended up with 3 buildings, all based on the 2×4 wedge plate. Frustratingly, we didn’t end up with an even number of each “side.”

Besides the cars and trucks above, we got 2 boats (one of which is also shown above on its trailer), 2 aircraft, and a train:

As with any LEGO set, we got extras of all the tiny parts (mostly 1×1 plates and tiles). Here I’ve collected all of the extras from all 24 models. Every model had at least one, except for the minifigure from Day 2. This tradition probably doesn’t make a lot of sense nowadays, given the accuracy of the factory equipment (scales that weigh the bags) but I guess they are just concerned little kids are most likely to lose these parts. With 24 separate models, there are always a ton of extra parts in the Advent calendars.

Awards

And now for a few awards…

Best Minifigure: Day 24: Santa Claus

Best Car or Truck: Day 14: Monster Truck

Best Christmas Model: Day 23: Rudolph & Sleigh

Best Building: Day 13: Bank

Best Parts Usage: Day 17: Airplane

Best Printed Part: Day 13: 1×1 tile with Dollar Sign

Best Combination: Days 20-22: Truck with trailer and boat

Best Overall Model: Day 12: Steam Train

This gallery shows all the images from Advent 2020: