Ten days into Advent and here at the Rambling Brick, we continue our investigation of ways that the LEGO® sets have been used to specifically celebrate the Christmas Holiday season, in light of this being the 20th anniversary of the first LEGO Advent Calendar.

The Christmas Build Ups: 40222 and 40253

Today, I thought we would take a quick look at the Christmas Build Up sets – 40222 and 40235, seen in 2016 and 2017 respectively.  Both sets have a range of about 250 elements, and were available as gifts with purchase from shop.lego.com and LEGO Brand Retail stores of their respective years.

These sets involved a series of Advent builds (24 in total), but unlike the standard Advent Calendars, the expectation is that each day’s model would be dismantled before attempting to construct the new one.  Most of the elements are readily available. 

At the time, reviews were polarised between those who just enjoyed the process of a new box of bricks, with a model to build each day, and those who were unhappy with the idea of not being able to have all the models constructed simultaneously.  I can appreciate both views, but as a Gift with Purchase, I understand the need to limit the part count in the sets. 

Both sets have a mixture of Christmas emblems, presents and brick built animals.  Plant of interesting construction techniques were used, as the instructions were able to be more complicated than those for the Advent Calendar Minibuilds.

I enjoyed them both, but some of the builds became conceptually repetitive, and as such, I think waiting a couple of years before following up with a similar set is worthwhile.

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Did you play along with the Christmas Build-up sets? What was your favourite build? Personally, I enjoyed the Sant shaped house in 40222.

Catching up with our Friends:

A mixture of foliage and round elements today: There could be a spark of an idea here…

And we have a lovely candy on a holly covered base.  The rounded 3×3 plate is an interesting addition to the parts found today, and I appreciate the trans orange cone as a flame.

Interestingly, this one will not be able to be hung on our christmas tree, now that we have erected in the living room.  I guess its going straight to the mantle piece…

Until tomorrow, Play Well!