LEGO Friends

The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #18

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Today, as we continue our adventure, I thought I’d briefly consider some sets that money can’t buy. Except on the secondary market.  Let’s have a look at some sets that have only been released as Gifts with purchase, but designed to help build up the winter Village.


3300014 Winter Sleigh Ride was released in 2011, along side the Winter Village Cottage, and available as a gift with purchase.  It again features a lamp post as well as four minifigures, although one has to wait, as the sleigh only has room for three!

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The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #17

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As we continue our investigation of Christmas Holiday LEGO® sets, I thought we would return to Christmas decorations today. Specifically decorations given as a gift with purchase. These almost annual decorations tend to become available as a gift with purchase around early December. I have only obtained one over the years, due to the absence of a local LEGO Brand Retail Store and (until recently) a $200 AUD threshold on free shipping for online orders. That is the toy soldier decoration from 2016.

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The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #16

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We are now two thirds of the way through our Advent-ure, where the Rambling Brick is travelling across the years to look at Seasonal Holiday sets that have been released over the years.  Today I thought I would look at Holiday Trains.  Train Sets have a great appeal for any LEGO Layout, as they add a sense of motion and life to an otherwise static display.

All Aboard!

Now, exactly what constitutes a Holiday Train seems to vary across the years. The First to be released was 10173 Holiday Train, in 2006: years before the conception of the current Winter Village.

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The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #15

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We continue our exploration of Holiday sets today with more brickbuilt Santa Claus action.
What could be cooler than Santa Claus? How about Santa Claus wearing sunglasses/ski goggles on a snow board, skis and snowmobile!And that’s exactly what you get in their curiosity from 2009: set 40000 Cool Santa Set. With 152 elements, this set allows you to build all three. Continue reading →

The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #14

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I found this set on display in  friend’s living room: it’s a great little way to display your love of LEGO at Christmas time.

As we continue our Advent-ure today ( exploring Christmas holiday related sets, as it is the 20th Anniversary of the first LEGO Advent Calendar), I thought we might look at a couple of small vignette sets related to the theme. 40106 Toy Workshop was released as a gift with purchase in 2014. With two elf minifigures and a small, 8×8 stud workshop, with a few microscale builds as toys as well, it is a great example of what can be achieved with a low part count.How great is the detail in the vice, as well as the microscale train engine!

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The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #12

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We finally got around to decorating our Christmas tree last night. As we unpacked our decorations we found these great baubles, Holiday Ornaments 852744 from 2009. Released as a set of three, we have several different renditions of Santa Claus: one wielding a sack, another with a present, and finally one on skis! I think we found them when we visited the USA around that time.  Based around a printed white brick for Santa’s head, each of these models is subtly different. As a group, they provide an interesting look in our tree.

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The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #11

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Today, we continue our Advent-ure: exploring past and present seasonal LEGO® sets released over the years.

Time for something we just have hanging around…

I am preparing to decorate my Christmas Tree. I suspect there might be some LEGO® based decorations to go on it this year. One, we picked up while travelling a few years ago, and was sitting close to the top of our box of decorations: 851358 – Holiday Bauble with White Bricks.

In a day or two, this bauble will be just hanging around…

The name is somewhat of a misnomer: this bauble also contains a selection of transparent clear and transparent light blue bricks, for an appropriately icy effect. Did I mention that it is now summer in Australia?

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The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #10

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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. 

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The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #8

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AS we continue Further and further into advent, we continue to look at short lived Advent Calendar themes.  While Castle has been a long standing theme since the beginning days of the Minifigure, it has not been an endless source of Advent Calendar based material.  this is a shame, as the daily development of accessories and stories works quite well in this context.

There have been two Castle themed Advent Calendars over the years: ‘Castle Advent Calendar 7979’ in 2008 and Kingdoms Advent Calendar 7952 from 2010

7979 Castle Advent Calendar – 1978

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The Rambling Brick’s Advent-ure #7

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We continue our nostalgia trip through the curiosities of LEGO® Seasonal offerings over the years, as a celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the first LEGO Advent Calendar. After visiting the Pirates Calendar, we continue to explore some of the lesser known themes in Advent Calendars.

In 2004 a most peculiar Advent Calendar was produced. Yes, I’m talking about 7575 Clikits Advent Calendar.  Aimed squarely at tween age girls, for whom constructible jewellery and accessories might be desirable, this set prodded 24 days of bangles, hair clips, gift tags and picture frames, culminating on December 24 with a case to carry the previous 23 gifts in.

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