Arstotle
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About Arstotle
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I love the City advent set this year. That's two great years in a row for City advent! I love not only the fawn, but also all the elves! Great for our winter villages for sure! You wonder if we might not see that fawn mold in the WV - either this year or next. I know it wasn't an official WV set, buy you got four adult reindeer molds in that Santa's sleigh set that was produced for several years. I believe that set is retired now, but I would imagine that Lego will try to keep some kind of set like that in circulation - it must have sold well.
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Looks like we're going to have a new winter-themed set that won't quite fit in scale with our Winter Village, but I'm still thrilled that Ideas finally approved a Christmas Vacation Griswold House set. It seems like that specific house has been submitted in different iterations several times over the years, but it always lost out and I never understood that. I hope that Ideas puts together a set on the scale of the Home Alone house, and it needs to include all the minifigures you can possible think of as well as the RV and the station wagon with tree on top. This thing is going to sell like hotcakes!
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Storage is always such an issue with Lego. Even disassembled in a box they take up a fair amount of space. But if you're leaving your Winter Village assembled, waiting for the next holiday season, the entire village certainly takes up some space. Such is the price of this hobby. Modulars do disassemble into separate floors fairly well, but they'll take up space in the end. I'm afraid the closest thing to a modular we'll ever see in the WV line will be that Main Street set from a few years back.
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I would love to see a line of winter/holiday themed modular buildings, but I don't think Lego would ever go for it as it would probably cannibalize some of the sales of their traditional modular line. But if they started a new line like that (and I do think it would sell well), I would definitely buy every one. What gets my attention is the 41843 Family Christmas Tree set that Lego did last year. It's 3k+ pieces and cost $300+, and in the US it was backordered or out of stock the entire month of December last year. So, there very much appears to be an appetite for Christmas sets in that size and price range. I wonder if Lego couldn't put out a traditional WV set at $100 - $125 and then another large set around $300 that could fit in with the WV line if so desired. I think of the Haunted House set that came out as part of the Monster Fighters line from several years back, where that set was greatly out of scale with the other MF sets, but it was an absolutely outstanding set on its own and it still mixed in well with the other MF sets. I think Lego could do the same thing with their holiday/winter sets and do a "normal" WV set and then do a separate 3k+ piece Santa's Headquarters, or something like that. I believe both sets would sell very well (assuming Lego actually did a good WV set, for a change) through the holiday season and possibly year round.
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I agree with pretty well all of this. A fire truck rolls through my neighborhood every December. Lights flashing, carols playing and Santa sitting up top and waving to kids. It's not a tradition that I grew up with, but it certainly seems to be popular where I live. So, while the Fire Station wasn't my favorite WV set, I do see where it fits into the WV theme. Maybe they'll do a WV police station one day, but there are probably 20 better ideas...if only Lego could figure out how to do the WV line well again. IMO, the only reason it feels like the WV line has run its course is because of the poor choices that Lego makes with this line. They either go with a rehash (train #2, the third toy store - this time in a main street set up) or they go bizarrely off the board (North Pole Post Office). There are a lot of nice options for traditional village shops that would fit into the current WV well (the WV has been in need of a Sweet Shoppe for years) and would not be a rehash, but IMO the Alpine Lodge has been the only decent idea in the last handful of years. That's what is killing this theme - a lack of creativity and execution. Just look at the 2025 Employee exclusive to see what can be done with a 1000 piece holiday set (admittedly, that was another toy store and post office, so not that original, but still very well done). Hopefully they don't give us train station #2 this year (the poor sales of last year's train should speak for themself) and instead come back with an original idea and build. As for the other, I've thought that Lego should do a Halloween Village for years. I would think that would be almost equally popular with the WV. Hopefully that's what this "Haunted House" turns out to be, but I'm not holding my breath.
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I'm skeptical that we'll ever have a dedicated WV police station. Sure, you could put all the drunk mall Santa's in there, but it's just not very cheerful. If they ever did something like a WV town hall, I could see attaching a small constable's office, or something along those lines. But I think that's as close as we ever get to a City-style WV police station. Now, a North Pole version of a police station - maybe Lego could do something with that idea that would be more whimsical and fun, and less dark/sad.
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I agree with this sentiment. Including a smart brick would drastically increase the price, and I'd much rather have the Lego pieces rather than spending money on a smart brick. I don't disagree that there are potential opportunities for the smart brick, but the price of these things is so high...I really think these smart bricks will be gone in a couple years. Every once in a while Lego seems to try to work some gimmick into their sets. I don't think it's ever worked out. With the Winter Village line, Lego needs to focus on creating some new buildings that would fit well in our villages. These repeated sets - both the Toy Store rehash and now the repeat train - seem not to have sold well. The train never even went to backorder in the US, but essentially every other Christmas-themed set was on backorder or Temporarily Out Of Stock for practically all of December. I don't think I'm alone in wanting new, unique sets for our villages. No repeats, and no gimmicks.
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I'd be surprised if any Lego fan would prefer stickers to printed elements. In my opinion, printed elements are always preferred. Several of the Chinese building brick companies are doing all printed elements in their sets, and some of those sets look really nice. Perhaps in time this will bring enough pressure that Lego will move towards more/all printed elements. But they get away with far too many stickers these days.
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Images of the second holiday GWP and the Lego employee gift are now circulating. 40778 - Winter Gazebo - has three minifigures, including a saxophone and a viola/bass. Looks like it might be smaller than the gazebo that came with 10222, but still looks like a nice addition to the Winter Village 4002025 - not sure what the name of the set is, but it looks to be some sort of town set, featuring a toy shop and a post office. Very nice set. Far superior to the train we got for the WV this year.
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I wouldn't be opposed if Lego tried something like that (not that they care what I think), but it's not something I would ever chase. Summer seems to be almost the antithesis of Lego - it's the weather that invites you not to be inside building Lego sets...though it's never really stopped me. As opposed to summer, I've always thought that Lego should do an autumn/Halloween village very akin to the Winter Village line. The upcoming Autumn Garden set is interesting, and I think a WV-type line with autumn colors and various Halloween elements would do very, very well.
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Leak out of Korea - looks like the Black Friday GWP is going to be this Hot Chocolate Stand. A welcome addition to the WV.
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As they haven't officially announced the set, it wouldn't be in that catalogue. I think they do another late holiday catalogue in late November/early December, and it will be in that one. But given the teaser video they released a few weeks back, the set is definitely coming.
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I'm very glad that didn't turn out to the be one of the holiday GWP's. Black Friday is late this year (November 28), so I guess we're still a little more than a month away from the VIP early access weekend. Maybe we'll get some sort of leak in another week...
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Ugh, I hope that's not accurate. With its exclusive GWP, I'm almost certainly going to be picking up the Enterprise-D when it releases on Black Friday (or, more likely, the early BF deal they do for VIP's/Insiders/whatever we're called these days), and I'd like a nice WV GWP to boot! And as for the train - I completely agree. The better sets are the AT-AT and the gingerbread house. I have the first train, but I'm a bit of a completist, so I'll probably pick up this one eventually. But, as always with the Winter Village, it's what could have been. So many more buildings that need to be made. I'll also mention that Santa's Post Office does have the "Retiring Soon" tag in the U.S. Short shelf life on that one, and understandably so, but that also means that secondary prices will likely jump up after it's gone. Just in case anyone is still on the fence...
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This place has been crickets for about a month, which is unsurprising given the general disappointment in this year's train set. Here's hoping that at least one of this year's holiday GWP's will be a nice addition to the winter village. I would think we'll get some sort of leak for the Black Friday GWP in the next couple weeks.
