LEGO Advent: Day 6

Is it already Day 6!?!? Another late post… it’s almost day 7 now!

We’ve had some great stuff out of the Advent Calendars so far. Today puts us one quarter of the way through them, and I’m excited for what we’ll find inside today.

In fact… let’s see what we got right now!

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LEGO City – Service Station

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Oh! Today we have ourselves a nice microscale build of set 60257: Service Station.

I don’t know why, but I recall very clearly getting the service station this year. Technicolor Mom picked it up for me to help keep us distracted while our floors were being replaced. We had to pack ourselves away up stairs for fear of dust/debris, and at the time the rising fear of COVID. Man, that feels like an eternity ago.

At 14 pieces, it’s smaller than the others so far, but it got the point across and fits into the scene that the advent calendar is trying to deliver.

I’m starting to see the lack of a holiday motif with this year’s calendar. I imagine the LEGO Group finds themselves between a rock and a hard place. If they made all their builds snowy and festive every year, people would complain it’s too similar… but if they stick to more generic city stuff, then folks wonder why things aren’t more festive.

At the end of the day, I’m having fun with it, and my daughter is teaching me that kids don’t overanalyze this stuff like we AFOLs do.

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LEGO Star Wars – TIE Dagger

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Here comes the SITH. A microscale build of the TIE Dagger is pretty cool. I think the movie classified them as a Sith TIE Fighter, and that names rings true if this is a microscale of set 75272: Sith TIE Fighter.

Like the service station, this set comes in smaller than previous builds with just 13 pieces, but I definitely felt like they were appropriately used here, including the transparent red piece to add that engine output on the back.

I had to use a few spare 1×1 pieces from the calendars to make a little stand for the photos, so ignore that festive green under the ship, haha.

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LEGO Harry Potter – Goble of Fire

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Today’s Harry Potter build is the Goblet of Fire. It’s a simple construct, almost all brown, but it was easy to identify and is another nice marker of the Yule Ball.

Indeed, so far Harry Potter’s advent calendar has been the one to feel the most cohesive, and despite the lack of holiday cheer, the theme carries itself as a holiday theme… mostly because I believe the films were heavily released around the winter holidays and my mind links the winter months with our magical wizard school.

Like our other builds today, this one came smaller than others, with just 12 pieces used for the goblet. Still a cool piece once put together, and there’s no reason this goblet design in dark gray couldn’t make a lovely fountain…

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LEGO Friends – Elf

The elf is cute.

I believe LEGO calls these figures micro-dolls? I don’t know for sure.

We’re at just four pieces again today.

Again, as before, my daughter happily constructed her new figure and showed them off to us with a smile on her face. There is no true reason here for LEGO designers to be upset about this Friends Calendar. I can grumble about price to piece ratio all I want, the truth remains that my four-year-old is delighted to open her new box each day, and she shows little concern that her reward is smaller or less flashy than the other options.

On that note, I am *genuinely* curious about age discrepancy with the intended gender market. Of note, our little girl has had trouble putting together many a set. Obviously she’s still under LEGO’s recommended age, but this Advent calendar has given her no issues. How can it? There’s only a few pieces in each box.

Was this intentional? Do parents pick up LEGO Friends calendars at a younger age if their children are girls? Is there a play-tested reason for the discrepancy in these products? Or is it more frugal? Does LEGO simply not move that many Friend’s calendars, so they reduced the number of pieces they waste each year in production?

Truly, this calendar has proven to be two things… a delight for my daughter, and an enigma for my own interests.