Xenophilius

As we approach the holiday season, I am reminded of how disappointed I am about this year’s HP Advent calendar (in contrast to how much I appreciated last year’s version). While some people are celebrating that all of the minifigs in this year’s set are new, I don’t think those minifigs are particularly useful. Yes, it is novel for the students to have scarves but not robes, but I can’t recall a time when the movies actually showed them wearing scarves without robes. (Logically, if the weather is cold enough to warrant a scarf, wouldn’t the student be wearing a robe too?) The Dumbledore and Flitwick minifigs are nice, but not that distinctive. The caroling ghost is easily the best item in this year’s calendar, but let’s remember that this ghost only appeared in one movie for about two seconds. The non-minifig items may be the most disappointing of any HP advent calendar so far. I like the crackers, but the house statues look odd to me, and the house-colored tables have no basis in the movies or books. Why couldn’t Lego have instead included the fun cereal boxes from the Chamber of Secrets set? I’d welcome more of those. The best HP Advent calendars have enhanced other regular sets such as the Yule Ball and Hogsmeade, but online reviewers have pointed out that it is very difficult to incorporate pieces from this year’s calendar into the new Great Hall set. So I will not be getting the Advent calendar this year. Instead, as a substitute, I purchased the Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes set and will be doling out portions of it for my daughter to build each day in December since it has lots of fun shop items and minifigs. As for next year, while the movies never showed the holidays there, I am hoping Lego makes a Diagon Alley-themed Advent calendar that complements the shop sets.

I'm surprised that so many people here are happy about the advent calendar. I'm usually a big fan of the HP advent calendars, but I'm probably not going to get it this year. I just don't see the point. I'll say the crackers are great. The caroling ghost is a novelty, but let's be clear it is a character who only appeared one movie for less than 4 seconds. The other minifigs are just slight variations on previous designs. (And, personally, I'd prefer to have a new Dumbledore based on Michael Gambon's version.) Otherwise, this calendar is mostly tables. Furthermore, the house color scheme for the table tops is unnecessary, and inaccurate in terms of the movies and books. Most items on the tables are boring. And those house statues simply don't appeal to me. Am I missing something here, because a lot of you sound so pleased about this set. Other years' calendars (esp. Yule Ball and Hogsmeade) seemed much more useful than this one. The main use I see for this year's calendar would be for people who are new to collecting HP Legos (so they didn't get the 2018 Great Hall) and can't afford $200 for the newest Great Hall; maybe this will serve as a low cost Great Hall alternative for them.

If Lego does a Grimmauld or Burrow-themed Advent calendar, what minifigs and builds would you want to see included (that aren't already in the non-Advent sets)? I'm finding it difficult to come up with a wish list. For Grimmauld, an injured Mr. Weasley minifig in a crown seems a bit grim and not a useful figure outside of that one scene. In terms of builds, the broomstick Santa at Grimmauld and the ice-skating snowman cake at the Burrow are too small to build on a scale to display with the minifigs. So what would be better options that you'd be excited to get?

Since we're talking about Gabrielle, I'll mention something I meant to share last year re: the Second Task set. The Gabrielle minifig from the previous Beauxbatons set had a face option showing her eyes closed. Using that Gabrielle minifig with closed eyes works nicely for display of the Second Task set. If you put Garbielle rather than Hermoine in the floating chain, you can depict the moment when Krum has swum off with Hermoine (I put them on the ladder) and Harry is faced with only Ron and Gabrielle remaining. This removes the need for characters missing from the Second Task set (Fleur, Cedric, Cho) since they are no longer in the scene at that point.

In terms of future Advent calendars, a logical holiday-themed location would be the Burrow, since that’s where they spent Christmas in HBP. While I wouldn’t mind an Advent calendar based on Christmas at Grimmauld from OotP, Grimmauld is such a dark location that I’d be surprised if Lego chose it for a holiday set (not that I would mind a set with a bunch of mounted elf heads). In contrast, the Burrow feels more warm and holiday-ish (though admittedly the movie version ends with the attack on the Burrow). If Lego based its Advent calendar on the book version of the Burrow Christmas rather than the movie version, that could open up some exciting minifig opportunities to include Bill Weasley, Percy, Scrimgeour, or Fleur.

For folks in the US looking for a good price on the new Lego Harry Potter Advent calendar, I noticed that my local Costco now has it in stock and is selling it for $35.

Yesterday, I saw the photo shared here of the builds in the upcoming HP advent calendar, and initially I was a bit ambivalent about it. But now I see that the Lego website shows what the interior display portion of the AC box will look like, and I think it is brilliant. For Lego to make a background image that combines an exterior view of Hogsmeade with the interiors of four shops, and builds for each of those shops, is marvelous!

Fair enough. I guess I just hoped that the golden item on the table was something more interesting.

But wizards don't use electricity, right?

What is the golden item on the table next to the blue chair supposed to represent?

One of the things I particularly appreciate about the new Hogsmeade Station set is that it is one of the only Harry Potter Lego sets based on a location you can visit in real life (outside of the Warner Bros studio tour and the Universal theme parks). It is based on the filming location at the Goathland train station for the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. There you can see working steam trains akin to the Hogwarts Express in action. The only other example that comes to mind of a real-life location in recent sets is the First Flying Lesson since those scenes were filmed at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland.

I deeply dislike the switch to green roofs on the castle sets since the 20th anniversary. I think it looks bad (inauthentic) compared to the gray roof castle sets, and it has been a major barrier to me getting any castle sets since then. (I know I could probably get gray alternate pieces on my own, but it just irks me too much.) It would have been charming if Lego had offered both green and gray roof pieces for one of the 20th anniversary sets as a nod back to the early sets, but Lego should not have kept using the green roof color scheme for the sets since then.

I share the disappointment with this year's HP advent calendar with its focus on useless micro-builds. I thought the Yule Ball advent calendar was the best because it had great figures to complement the Clock Tower/Yule set, and also worked as a lower-cost way to get the Yule Ball for those who could not afford the clock tower set. On that note, if I could ask for one HP advent calendar in the future, it would be based on Diagon Alley. I simply couldn't afford the Diagon Alley set, and I imagine that there are plenty of other people in a similar situation, so it would be very helpful if Lego offered a low-cost version of Diagon Alley in the form of an advent calendar.

At a Costco near San Francisco, I saw good deals on two of the recent Harry Potter sets. The Ministry of Magic is selling there for $79 and Dumbledore's Office is $56.

I will limit my list to favorite sets I actually bought, and I did not buy any sets costing more than $100. 1. 2018 Great Hall 2. 2019 Clock Tower 3. Attack on the Burrow 4. Hagrid's Hut 5. 2020 Advent calendar (Yule Ball) 6. Hogsmeade Village 7. Expecto Patronum 8. Rise of Voldemort 9. Grindelwald's Escape (esp. for thestral!) 10. Polyjuice Mistake