Advent 2013 Day 7

For Day 7 we get three fairly decent builds to make up for the previous day. Friends continues the retail kiosk motif with another little booth, City gives us a nice table, and Star Wars has a gun rack. So much for LEGO being peaceful. (Sorry for posting this a little bit late. But I took and added a picture for Day 6 at least.)

Advent 2013 Day 7

Advent 2013 Day 6

Today we get minifigs in Star Wars and City, but the Friends contribution is really quite disappointing. Star Wars gives us a Rebel Commando figure, and City gives us the robber who I guess will be using the crowbar and axe (and handcuffs?) from Day 5. But Friends gives us just a handful of parts for making jars and bottles of merchandise to be sold at the vending stand we built yesterday – looks like girly stuff like makeup and perfume, but to my eye it just looks like a very small assortment of not very useful parts. Don’t get me wrong – I like that Friends is providing a product line that appeals to girls, but I’m personally not a fan of makeups and perfumes anyway, and reinforcing those gender stereotypes doesn’t sound to me like a step forward.

Edit: Pictures!
Advent 2013 Day 6

Advent 2013 Day 5

For our fifth day we get 3 little models, and a lot of parts.

Advent 2013 Day 5

In Friends, we get a little booth, such as you might see at a winter flea market. The Star Wars calendar brings us a little Cloud Car (Hey, something I actually recognize from the original trilogy!).

But the City entry is a little baffling. We have a barrel with a crowbar, axe, and handcuffs, and a little wall with a bar protruding from it. Crowbars and axes make sense for fire departments, but handcuffs don’t; and the reverse for a police department. And what’s the little wall for? Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.

Advent 2013 Day 3

Today’s Advent Calendar entries bring us a lamppost, a cute Dalmatian dog, and an FA-4 droid.

Advent 2013 Day 3

You may notice each day’s entry has a few extra parts. This is normal LEGO practice – they usually include an extra part for any small pieces included in the set, as these are the most common/easily lost by children, and it’s cheaper for LEGO to include an extra one than to have to fulfill a customer service request to send another one. I’ve also heard that it may be because LEGO parts are counted by machines weighing them, including an extra one of the most lightweight elements guarantees that they don’t accidentally short you by one element. Whatever the reason, it’s something LEGO has been doing for as long as I can remember, and I remember even when I was a kid having extras, and having to find a spot on the built set to place them. I don’t understand why they give us an extra cone, but not an extra trans-yellow cylinder, since the cylinders weigh about the same as cones and are a lot more easy to lose since they can roll under furniture easily… Anyway, since each day’s advent calendar entry is its own build, we end up with a lot of these little loose parts by the end of the month.

I really like the Dalmatian dog – I imagine that like last year we’ll be building a series of fire department models in the City advent calendar. The lamppost is not terribly original but is pretty cute regardless. It’s kind of hard to tell in this photo, but the droid is made of dark grey and dark brown parts (the LEGO Star Wars advent calendar models are based on Clone Wars this year, which I don’t watch, so I’m not very familiar with the characters and ships we will be building).

Advent 2013 Day 2

Day 2 of the advent calendars gives us a little model for each of the three themes.

Advent 2013 Day 2

Just like last year we have a little snowmobile for Friends, though this one is a lot more elaborate. Last year, City gave us a fireplace on Day 21, but this year we get one right up front on Day 2. And for Star Wars we get the first in what is undoubtedly many micro scale spaceships (Count Dooku’s Solar Sailer).

Advent 2013 Day 1

December is here, and it’s time for another round of LEGO Advent Calendars. This year we have three calendars: Friends (set# 41016), City (60024), and Star Wars (75023).

Each of the sets gives us a figure: A Friends minidoll (Stephanie?), a City minifig (cop with black baseball cap and red mug), and a droid (R5-F7). They included an extra cap and mug in the City set. Here’s a photo of them all together:

Advent 2013 Day 1

Advent 2012 Day 24

Last day of the LEGO Advent Calendars!

Advent 2012 Day 24

Star Wars and City both give us what we have come to expect from LEGO Advent Calendars – Santa Claus minifigs. Santa Maul is a cute idea, though I don’t think we can count on him for some really good toys for the good girls and boys… and for the bad ones, recruiting for the Dark Side? Either way, lose-lose. But the Santa Suit is great, just swap the heads and you’re good to go. In City we have a plain unprinted red suit for Santa, so I’d combine the two and get a great Santa. But what is up with this item from Friends? A cosmetics table… with a wig stand? Are we supposed to believe the teenagers of Heartlake City are wearing wigs? Perhaps one of them is a cancer survivor? That’s a cheerful thought for Christmas. Sorry, I call Christmas Fail on this one.

Advent 2012 Day 23

The next-to-last day in our Advent calendar gives us some gift boxes and a snowdroid!

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The light blue and white box is from Friends; the other two are from City. But the best part about today is the droid – look closely at the printing, he has carrots on his chest and eyes made out of coal! And of course, the top hat to finish it all off. Adorable.

Advent 2012 Day 22

Today is the penpenultimate day in the Advent Calendar, and we have a bumper crop of bonus parts!

Advent 2012 Day 22

The Friends set gives us a nice little tree, and though I checked carefully there’s no use for the 2×2 round plates or those extra red dots in the model!

Star Wars gives us another microscale ship, with the expected extra cheese slopes and half pin.

In City, we get what seems to be a sleigh trailer with no fewer than three extra robot arms! I welcome this, because these are a neat part that we don’t see often – the battle droid arms with the 90 degree rotation between the two ends, and straight elbow.