Another Monday. Another week.
2020 continues… but at least we have our LEGO Advent Calendars!!!
We’re over a quarter of the way through this holiday event, and boy are our arms tired… no, wait, that’s the wrong joke.
Anyway, we’re going to crack these things open and see what day 7 has to offer…
LEGO City – Helicopter
Helicopter goes *fwipfwipfwipfwip* 
The inspiration? Probably not, but look at angry face!
Today we have another fun microbuild in the form of a helicopter. I am winging it with this one (no pun intended) and assuming this is a microscale version of set 60243: Police Helicopter Chase. It’s possible they were trying to emphasis their “really flies” sets this year, so maybe it’s supposed to be 60244: Police Helicopter Transport, but I have yet to hear a good thing about those helicopters so I’ll just walk away.
Of course, mindful note, the angry face on the LEGO minifigure in the police helicopter chase almost makes the set onto the list of things I want!
Ahem, the build has 14 pieces, so falling right into the average count for the series.
LEGO Star Wars – Sith Trooper
There wasn’t a lot of stuff that screams out at me from the latest Star Wars film. This red trooper is one of the things I do remember. I love the way it looks, but as always with Star Wars, I’m left scratching my head about introducing all these cool new things just to have them get wiped away within a two hour window.
Also, do these guys have force powers? Are they like… genetically modified? What’s their m-count?!?
It’s also a little unnerving to have the dude under the mask. I mean, part of watching all these Stormtroopers get vaporized is the idea that we don’t really know who they are. They have no names, just numbers, and they’re all the same… lost in the crowd.
Man, this is deep, and I really wish they’d built that up more with Fynn in the films.
Ooph. Let’s just talk about Mandalorian from now on…
LEGO Harry Potter – <>
There is a scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where Argus Filch is preparing a gramophone. I remember that scene only because of how amazingly huge it was. Now, finally, we have that famous gramophone in LEGO form.
There’s not much to be said about this build today, though TechnicolorMom pointed out that there might be a potential plot issue with these builds. As this year’s calendar is aimed at 7+, but there are plenty of small ones that might not have read/watched Goblet of Fire yet (darker themes, death, whatnot). As a result, all of these builds would be kind of foreign to a young Potter fan.
Of course, testing this theory (we asked a coworker if their young one had read it), we found that our only sample size had, in fact, already read the novel, so maybe it’s not as much of an issue as she first theorized.
11 pieces gets you a shiny musical device fit for any magical wizard.
LEGO Friends – Holiday Archway
So today was a bit of a LEGO Friends revelation.
Our daughter did her build and cheered on as she has every day. When she pulled out a bag with over 16 pieces, I was blown away. She put it together with relative ease, though she still struggles a bit with actually pushing pieces all the way down, though that’s not LEGO’s fault. She’s got several years to reach their recommended age.
Anyway, upon finishing today’s build, TechnicolorMom triggered some unintentional theory crafting about the overall theme here.
“It’s a mall,” she said. “One of those mall Santa setups.”
What a coincidence, I thought to myself, having just seen some of the LEGO catalogue for the first half of 2021, including set 41450: Heartlake City Shopping Mall.
Is it possible all of this story revolves around Emma going to the mall to meet with a Santa Claus impersonator in a big chair and fake fireplace?! Does this mean our child will finally get to build a chair!?!
As soon as we talked about it, there was no other logical option.
This was all a 4-D Chess move by LEGO to introduce us to the LEGO Friends shopping mall, complete with a mall Santa for us to include in our playset!
Okay… maybe not… but today at least signaled the most time the two of us talked about the Friends Advent calendar with anything other than mild judgment.
TechnicoolDad 