This year, my daughter was officially old enough to ask if she could have the LEGO Friends advent calendar. I was pleased by this, as I’d started to feel guilty that I mostly just shoved the plastic toys at her. Not so. She was very excited for this event.
So, without further delay, the new advent calendar countdown begins!!!
LEGO City – Ocean Exploration Ship
Earlier this year, LEGO released a massive floating boat, 60266 – Ocean Exploration Ship, and I was immediately in love. I had a few floating LEGO boats in my own childhood, and I knew I wanted to have this beast in my family collection.
I was overjoyed to see that we are kicking off this month with a micro-build of that same set!
The finished model has just 16 pieces and is immediately recognizable!
The first day micro-build. 
The Ocean Exploration Ship full-sized.
LEGO Star Wars – A-Wing
I’m not going to lie… this is my first Star Wars advent calendar. Ever.
I can thank the Mandalorian, and the Star Wars LEGO game code, or that one.
Despite this, I am happy to say that building today’s small A-Wing was really neat, and at 21 pieces (I think), this was the largest out of all our advent objects today. Like the City theme, the first day was a micro-build of a much larger set. In this case, it is the 75275 – A-Wing Starfighter.
I definitely enjoyed putting this together, even if an A-Wing doesn’t exactly scream “Christmas”, it still makes me want to pick up the bigger brother and add it to my display case… somewhere…
The first day A-Wing Micro-build. 
The 2020 UCS A-Wing
LEGO Harry Potter – Young Harry
The Yule Ball appears to be the theme for this year’s advent calendar.
I’m not much of a Harry Potter fan, that goes to my wife, but she always asks for the HP calendar since I’m getting the others anyway.
For the first day, we have young Harry Potter, a small table, and a poster or invitation to the Yule Ball.
As there is already a good mix of Christmas themes already woven through Harry Potter, this calendar appears best suited to capitalize on both feeling very “festive” and sticking to the subject matter at the same time.
Most importantly though, my wife and I were equally shocked to discover that Harry’s legs could bend!!! At first we thought this was a major development with the legs used on the kids in various LEGO sets, as the one thing that frustrates our daughter to no end is trying to sit kids down in vehicles and other sets and not being able to bend the legs.
Unfortunately, a little sleuthing revealed the legs are actually “medium-sized” and were released as far back as 2018, according to brickset.
Now that we know these exist (in multiple colors) we might have to pick some up for other young LEGO folks in our display cases, so that they can finally sit in cars properly!
LEGO Friends – Emma
The LEGO Friends advent calendar has been an interesting one for us as Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs). The last few years were more about ornaments or decorations, and less about the actual LEGO Friends theme. I am a big fan of the LEGO Friends line, not because of the girl-focused themes and color palette per-say, but because a lot of the buildings and vehicles just look really cool, especially their exploration boats or water parks! I feel like the Friends line always has something really intriguing, which is why the ornament filled calendars have always seemed… less interesting.
Anyway, we’ll have to see how that pans out this year. 2020 will mark the first year my daughter is actively opening the numbers and building the sets herself. At just over four years old, she’s a little under the LEGO recommended age, but she knows when to ask for help on some of the pieces she can’t quite get, and hearing her shout, “It’s Emma!” this morning was pretty cool.
Speaking of Emma… The Mini-doll sports a new bright blue set of pajamas and a hairbrush. I’m excited to see one of the girls showing up on day one, and I wish I could say our daughter would find the others in this calendar, but I doubt that’ll be the case. I will admit it’s odd, especially since Harry Potter has given us the full cast of characters the last few years.
A good start, let’s see where it goes.
TechnicoolDad 