Today we continue our Advent-ure: 2018 is the 20th anniversary of the first LEGO Advent Calendar, which appeared in 1998.  In our the Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure, we travel through the years looking at different sets and themes which have been used over the years to celebrate the Christmas Holiday Season. And then, you can follow down to see what our Friends have in store in their Advent Calendar today.

Today, let us take a look at the Nutcracker 40254, distributed as a gift with purchase during Brick Friday 2017.  Nutcracker dolls originated in Germany in the seventeenth century, and became associated with Christmas through Hoffman’s story “The Mouse and the Nutcracker” which is set around the time of a household Christmas Party.  The story was popularised through Tchaikovsky’s ballet adaptation, which has become a seasonal favourite over the year.

The set has two hundred and thirty parts, and features an opening and closing jawbone, operated through a lever on its back.  As a relatively recent set, it should not set you back too much on the secondary market.  This version of the nutcracker makes great use of the warm gold/ pearl gold highlights.  The build was simple, and made good use of warm gold jumper plates.  This was not the only Nutcracker model released in 2017, with the annual staff gift also depicting a much taller nutcracker.  I quite like this set: it is small and effective, and achieved its goal of causing me to purchase a significant amount of LEGO at the time of the year.

I don’t know what drove me to want to discuss it this particular set today…

What Are Our Friends Up To?

All set for Christmas Eve! Today build another hanging decoration: this one showing chimney and  fire place , with a Christmas stocking, and a toy soldier.  Or is it a nutcracker?  Whichever it is, it is a sweet little build!

Come back tomorrow as the Advent-ure continues. Until then, play well.