Tag: friends

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

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).

Last day of the LEGO Advent Calendars!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Day 21 of the LEGO Advent Calendars brings us a Star Wars Super Battle Droid (meh) and some traffic cones and a sign for City, and finally Friends comes through with a detailed model!

The Super Battle Droid is a lot more detailed than LEGO’s regular Battle Droid model, but it feels like cheap plastic from China like a lot of non-LEGO toys, and the parts don’t seem to be very useful.

City gives us two traffic cones with blue lights on them, and a yellow warning sign. In case you’re wondering how the warning sign is attached, it has a clip in the back and it’s attached to the dark grey claw – you can see the extra claw lying with the other extra parts. Not a bad way to attach the sign, though it’s kind of low to the ground.

But the best model this time comes from Friends, and there’s no pink or purple or teal or anything! How odd! It’s a nice simple little fireplace with a mantle decorated for the holidays. How sweet.

Also, happy Mayan New Year everybody! It’s already December 22 in parts of the world, and we’re all still here….

For Day 20 of the Advent calendars, we get a cool (and very detailed) Star Wars microscale spaceship, but the other two calendars are a little bland.

The ship is General Grievous’s Starfighter, from the prequel movies, so blah, but it’s a nice little piece of LEGO construction and SNOT (Studs Not On Top) design. For City we get a wheelbarrow with an extra wheel hub, for cleaning up the mess created by all those snowball fights, and for Friends we have a Shrubbery.

Day 19 of the LEGO 2012 Advent Calendars.

For City, we get a fireman. For Star Wars we get a microscale Trade Federation Shuttle. But where’s the Friends model, I hear you cry? Look closely in the fireman’s left hand – a handbag. Just one part. Really, LEGO? One part???

But we get tons of extra fire hats and coffee mugs. Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed that minifigs drink a lot of coffee? Seems like every set nowadays has one … every truck driver and heavy equipment operator in LEGOLAND is apparently sipping coffee all day long. I think LEGO may be working their set designers too hard, they need more sleep…