Advent 2024

I am sorry to say this year I didn’t make it all the way through Advent. We bought a house in November, and I tried to do the usual daily Advent posts while amid the chaos of preparing the house, packing, and moving, but it was difficult to keep up (even more than it usually is) and the last straw was after Day 15 when I had a sewage flood at my LEGO studio! I just couldn’t keep going, and stopped at Day 15, and by the time I would have been able to resume it was well into the next year and didn’t seem appropriate to retroactively be covering the holidays. Plus, I was pretty upset about the election results and busy with the new house. 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.

This year I’m doing the 2024 City, Disney, Friends, and Marvel Advent Calendars. Also posting daily videos in my YouTube channel. Here’s 2024 Advent days 1-15:

Day 1

Time for our annual ritual of covering the LEGO Advent calendars! Today we get two minifigures and two mini-minidolls.

City gives us a snowboarder.

Disney gives us Moana with a gift.

In Friends, we get this character named Paisley.

And finally, the Marvel Spider-Man set gives us Spidey himself.

Products in this photo were purchased by myself for review, no compensation or sponsorship was given in exchange for the video. Links to the items mentioned are Amazon affiliate links (Ads); click on them to support this channel.

Day 2

Today’s Advent models give us a construction crane with a drill on the tip, a remote island from Moana, a piano, and some webs for Spidey.

City and Moana are micro scale models:

The piano is minifigure-scale and looks like it belongs in a bar on Miami Vice.

Spider-Man didn’t really get a model per se, just some web parts like we got last year but this time in white.

I used the parts from days 1 and 2 to come up with a basic little model. The hard part was dealing with such a small parts inventory, especially since I give myself the rule to use at least one part from each of the calendars for the current day. What I came up with is a TV studio camera.

Day 3

Days 3 and 4 got covered together: I fell asleep on the couch the night Day 3 was due and didn’t get it done, so I caught up the following evening. Not an auspicious beginning! Anyway, Day 3 gives us a dog with a bone and a skateboard with helmet (City), the Little Mermaid and her castle (Disney), a snowboard ramp and a bunny (Friends), and some street furniture (Spider-Man).

Day 3

City gives us a dog with a bone.

Disney’s model is Ariel, the Little Mermaid, as a mini-minidoll.

Friends gives us a snowboard ramp with board and helmet.

The Spider-Man (Marvel) model is a newspaper vending machine (remember these) and a trash can. The side of the newspaper machine opens up to accommodate a backpack, and the side of it is a piece of spider web.

Here are all the Day 3 models together as a group.

Day 4

The City model for Day 4 is a skateboard with helmet.

Disney’s model for Day 4 is the micro scale castle for Ariel.

Friends gives us a bunny and some pet show props.

And Spider-Man’s model for Day 4 is more street furniture, this time it’s a streetlight on a corner with streetsigns and a closed-circuit TV camera pointing down at a banana peel.

And here are the Day 4 models staged together:

MOC

The MOC I built for Day 4 is a kid riding the skateboard being pulled along by the dog, carrying a gift. I managed to include at least 1 part from each of the above 8 models! (As a bit of a cheat, there’s a 1×2 plate on the bottom of the skateboard.)

Day 5

Five days into Advent, and Day 5’s models are a skier (City), a driedel-type spinner (Disney), a campfire (Friends), and Venom with a hot dog (Spider-Man). With the parts we have thus far, I built a helicopter MOC.

City´s model is this skier:

The Disney model is this spinner thingy. The Disney advent calendar features a game board on the flap, which has squares of four different colors, and those colors are the four sides of this spinner. Like a driedel, you spin it and then whatever color ends up is the color of the next place your figure goes to, I presume.

Today’s fourth Advent model is Venom from Spider-Man. He´s holding a hot dog.

Using the parts from the first five days of all four calendars, I built a helicopter. I used at least one part from each of Day 5’s models, and I thought the coolest idea I came up with was using Venom´s hot dog to hold the tailrotor.

Day 6

Today’s models are a radio controlled sailboat, Pua from Moana, another miniminidoll, and a hot dog cart. Can you believe we’re already 25% through the 24 days of Advent? Time sure flies.

City’s model is the RC boat. I brought back the minifig from Day 1 to pose with it.

This adorable pig is Pua from the Moana movies.

Friends gives us another one of the mini minidolls. This one appears to be named Olly.

from the Marvel Spider-Man set, we get a hot dog cart. This is where Venom got his hot dog, apparently.

And for Day 6’s MOC (My Own Creation) I built this little propeller plane.

Day 7

One week into Advent already! Today’s models are a cat with a bowl and a fish bigger than he is (City), Moana’s boat (Disney), a desk (Friends), and a street corner with a traffic light and fire hydrant (Spider-Man).

The City model is just three parts. The kitty is adorable!

Disney’s model is Moana’s outrigger canoe.

Friends gives us a tiny desk.

Spider-Man gives us another street corner, this time with a traffic light and a fire hydrant.

The MOC (My Own Creation) I designed for this is a videogamer’s chair. As always I built it using at least one part from each of Day 7’s models, plus parts from earlier days. The cat bowl is the base of the chair, the light nougat color 2×3 plate and cheese slopes are from Moana’s boat, or maybe the 2×3 plate is from the Friends desk along with the 2×2 round plate on the base of its chair, and lastly the part at the top of the light pole and the grey stud from the fire hydrant are the representatives of the Spider-Man build.

Here the chair is flipped over so you can see better how it’s built.

I put Spidey in the chair so you can see how a minifigure fits.

Day 8

Today we are 1/3 of the way through Advent, and the 8th day gives us a scooter, Ariel’s grotto stash, a mailbox and lamppost, and a SpideyCar.

The City model is a stand-up scooter.

Since the handlebar is articulated, it can easily accommodate different heights of minifigure.

From Disney, we get the Little Mermaid’s grotto of collections: a bust of Prince Eric, a jewel, and a dinglehopper.

Friends gives us a mailbox and lamppost.

I haven’t seen the movie this is from but apparently it’s Miles Morales’s Spidey-Car.

Using at least one part from the above plus other parts from this season so far, I’ve built a gingerbread bulldozer:

Here’s a view of the underside, where you can see how I used one of the scooter wheels as a stud orientation reverser.

Day 9

Day 9 from the Advent calendars is upon us, and we have three new figures (City, Disney, and Marvel), and a cat tree from Friends.

Looks like this is the dad of the family with his hot cocoa and whipped cream (City).

We’ve had Moana and The Little Mermaid, now it’s time for Frozen and Elsa (Disney).

Friends gives us a deviation from human figures with this adorable kitty and its climbing structure and fish (Friends).

Lastly the Marvel Spiderverse takes us to an alternate reality with the Ghost Spider (Marvel).

And with at least one part from each of these plus the other parts we got so far, I built this little hummingbird.

Day 10

We’re into double digits now! Day 10 is only 2 weeks from Christmas Eve. Are you done with your shopping? City gives us a remote control fire truck, Disney a snowman on a teeter totter, Friends a snowball launcher, and Marvel is the drum set for Ghost Spider.

Here’s the little fire truck from City.

At first I thought this was a snowman launcher, but it’s probably a teeter totter — haven’t all these been removed in the real world due to liability concerns?

The Friends model is a launcher, though a pretty pathetic one — see the video I made.

Marvel’s model is the drum set for Ghost Spider.

For Day 10’s MOC I built a wind-up roller skating robot!

Here are some close-ups showing how he was built:

Day 11

The 11th day in our LEGO Advent calendars gives us a baby in an ugly Christmas onesie (City), the ice castle from Frozen (Disney), a snow wall to knock down (Friends), and a gift shooter (Marvel).

As an original creation I took at least one part from each set along with parts received in earlier days, and built a snow machine, as used to make artificial snow at ski resorts.

Day 12

This is the halfway point! Are you done with your holiday shopping? Today’s Advent calendar entries are a baby stroller (City), a baby Sven from Frozen (Disney), a woman with a guitar (Friends), and a blue and red candy cane decoration (Marvel).

City gives us a stroller for Day 11’s baby:

Disney’s model is a young version of Sven the reindeer:

Friends has been all mini-minidolls so far, but this is a regular adult size minidoll, with a guitar:

A candy cane but in blue and red for Spider-Man’s colors:

I wasn’t able to come up with a decent MOC idea this time around… I got stumped trying to find a way to use that guitar and couldn’t get past that block. I also didn’t get the video put together in time.

Day 13

Friday the 13 gives us these lucky models: a woman on skates with a cookie (City), a sleigh (Disney), a baby rocker (Friends), and Miles Morales (Marvel)

I didn’t have time to do the video or MOC for this day.

Day 14

I fell behind. Sorry, in my defense, I bought a house and have been rather overwhelmed lately. But I’m catching up now. Day 14 gives us a remote control helicopter/drone (City), a fireplace with a frog (Disney), a karaoke machine (Friends), and a wind-up toy robot (Marvel).

This helicopter won’t get very far with such a small main rotor and no tailrotor…

This fireplace marks the beginning of sets from The Princess and the Frog.

Friends gives us karaoke:

And for Spider-Man we have this adorable little robot.

Sorry, still no MOC for this day, but one is coming on Day 15!

Day 15

Still playing catch-up, here’s Day 15 with a bunny stuffy (City), Tiana (Disney), a sewing machine (Friends), and a Spider-Car (Marvel). I built a MOC of a truck using parts from Day 15 and parts from earlier days as well.

Hug me!

Here’s Tiana, from from Princess and the Frog (which I have sadly never seen):

This sewing machine is a cute little build with some nice use of parts. I like the ice skate presser foot.

Here’s a Peter Parker color scheme Spider-Car:

I used parts obtained thus far from days 1-15 to make this model of a semi, 18-wheeler, tractor-trailer, whatever you care to call it. I used at least one part from each of this day’s models.

Recap

It’s been a busy Advent for me. We just bought a house and I’ve been busy packing and getting it ready to move into and I thought I was going to be able to stay on top of the Advent calendars but clearly not. And then last week we had a plumbing disaster in my studio and that was the last straw. I’ll play catch up after we get moved in, sorry about that…

[Updated Sept 2025] Sorry, I decided it didn’t make sense to resume so long after the season had ended.

You can see all photos from Advent 2024 in this Flickr Album: