Winter Village Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[RichardGoring]

16 minutes ago, DBlegonerd7 said:

I am not sure if we are on the same page? 

I was talking about a female elf hat WITH (+) hair, such as a braided ponytail under a pink hat.

But i do have that Rosa (I nicknamed the female elf in pink) and I love her!

Oh yes, I realized that you want a different mould with hair attached to the hat/ears. I just wonder whether LEGO will ever do it, given that they may think they already have what they need.

[Lion King]

11 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

Oh yes, I realized that you want a different mould with hair attached to the hat/ears. I just wonder whether LEGO will ever do it, given that they may think they already have what they need.

Yeah! I would love to see some elf hats with ears/hair for male and female elf helpers. 

I just think it’s little weird seeing all elves with no hair under their hats. 

Ah well, we will see about next Witner Village set next year. :)

[girlie-site-boots]

Has anyone put the new road plates with your village? 

How is it looking.

I'm also considering swapping my white fleece ground for white baseplates. I certainly think my village could do with some improvements from last year.

[Celtchief]

3 hours ago, girlie-site-boots said:

Has anyone put the new road plates with your village? 

 

I picked up two sets of road plates and tons of matching gray smooth 2x4 pieces because I intend to add them, and run my train track next to them. 

[RichardGoring]

JK Brickworks has done another tutorial. This time making Santa's sleigh move and then fly.

Making LEGO Reindeer Fly - YouTube

[PGBQW]

Any news on the other Christmas GWP we were supposed to get?

[AFOLguy1970]

For anyone building the Santa Sleigh set, were your instructions and sticker sheets crumpled?  I bought two sets, and they both were in fairly bad shape when I opened the boxes.  

[Karalora]

Mine were a little curled on one side, but there was no creasing and the stickers were still firmly stuck to the sheet and worked fine. Mishaps occur in shipping and if you bought two boxes at the same time, they were probably part of the same shipment and subjected to the same sort of handling.

[XG BC]

my wish for a winter themed set would be a really nice chairlift/skilift. doesnt even have to be detachable one (that would belong to the technic category and would cost 800€ probably...) just motorized and work like the real thing. I mean i already did that myself but i would like to see an official lego version and how legos designers solve the problems asocciated with it and make it look semi-realistic and good.

[Karalora]

While setting up my village over the course of this weekend, I decided that what the WV line really needs is something as grand as the Monster Fighters Haunted House set, which is always the focus of my Halloween LEGO display. The Home Alone house might be slightly trying to fill that role, but it's a licensed set, not part of the WV branding, and doesn't share the same aesthetic. I'm thinking of something more along the lines of a big department store (for Christmas shopping) or on the fantasy side of things, a North Pole castle.

[Maple]

I think the theme needs to go back to the days of several smaller side builds. Which is funny because I don't own any of them. 

I was looking at the bakery and it has the nice little rink, the Fire Station had a fountain, and the Train Station is the last set with a vehicle.

Amazon USA briefly had Belle’s Castle Winter Celebration (43180) on sale for 45% off. I'm curious if anyone has that in their display to add a little color.

[RichardGoring]

The December store calendar is up and only the skiing Santa polybag as a GWP Dec 1-14. No Santa's Living Room mentioned.

https://www.lego.com/cdn/cs/set/assets/blt540b4529a80f0b09/12_December_Calendar_US.pdf

[PGBQW]

1 minute ago, RichardGoring said:

The December store calendar is up and only the skiing Santa polybag as a GWP Dec 1-14. No Santa's Living Room mentioned.

https://www.lego.com/cdn/cs/set/assets/blt540b4529a80f0b09/12_December_Calendar_US.pdf

So the white reindeer thingy is not an actual set? That's a bummer tbh

[CDM]

14 minutes ago, RichardGoring said:

The December store calendar is up and only the skiing Santa polybag as a GWP Dec 1-14. No Santa's Living Room mentioned.

https://www.lego.com/cdn/cs/set/assets/blt540b4529a80f0b09/12_December_Calendar_US.pdf

One thing of note: Skiing Santa is an in-store offer only. I find it odd they wouldn't offer an online eligible GWP at all in December.

[Celtchief]

26 minutes ago, CDM said:

One thing of note: Skiing Santa is an in-store offer only. I find it odd they wouldn't offer an online eligible GWP at all in December.

FYI, it looks like you can buy the Skiing Santa for 5 dollars at Target starting Dec 4th, as well, so if that works for you.

So, yeah, bummer about the 2nd GWP.  Last years GWP in Dec was great, the ice skating pond.  I wonder if they sold so well in November they just don't feel then need or have the inventory to incentivize Dec purchases even more.  

 

[Jonnis]

According to brickfanatics.com «The store calendars for the UK have not featured any offers recently, and this may be a sign that the lack of any promotions on the leaflet is not a sign that nothing will be available to those in the region during December.» I still hope that something will be revealed after the «black friday» period.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Jonnis

[RichardGoring]

It would be nice if they do have a GWP in December. Not because I need that kind of incentive, or expect it, but because they have been really very good sets. The ice rink and Charles Dickens last year were excellent. To the point that I would have happily bought them if they were generally available.

Or maybe they're changing tactic and moving some of these sets to be VIP Rewards. There were surveys through the last year about that possibility. Perhaps the camera is the start of something more consistent? Might be a clever move by LEGO to get people to buy more directly from them (as opposed to other retailers) so that they have a stack of VIP points ready in case there is a new reward. Compared to the current situation where you can wait to see if the GWP is something you want and then choose buy from LEGO for the GWP, or another retailer (often at a discount).

[CDM]

Given the recent supply chain uncertainty it's possible they left things off the calendars in case certain GWP were unavailable at the time of the intended promotion, which seems to be Brickfanatics implication. Another possibility is the Dec GWP was in the works but not available in time. I think there is still a possibility for another holiday themed GWP to pop up.

[Lion King]

20 hours ago, Karalora said:

While setting up my village over the course of this weekend, I decided that what the WV line really needs is something as grand as the Monster Fighters Haunted House set, which is always the focus of my Halloween LEGO display. The Home Alone house might be slightly trying to fill that role, but it's a licensed set, not part of the WV branding, and doesn't share the same aesthetic. I'm thinking of something more along the lines of a big department store (for Christmas shopping) or on the fantasy side of things, a North Pole castle.

That’s why we are asking for Halloween/Autumn Village sets in future! :)

But yeah, I had same feeling about Home Alone. I don’t feel like it’s fitting into WV if it’s a licensed set. I think Christmas-themed department store would be awesome! Along with a mall Santa minifigure and “elf” employees.

Wait there is a light Gray reindeer in that December calendar from lego website? Of course it may be just an artwork but….

[Ardelon]

I actually think the Home Alone set could fit nicely in the WV as the house of the local Scrooge who needs to be reformed - or after his reformation, with him hosting a Christmas party in his front garden/courtyard, with a big Christmas tree, ice sculptures, and what not. Its not relevant to my purchases, but I just wanted to add another point of view on the set and its role in the WV. 

[Maple]

9 hours ago, Celtchief said:

FYI, it looks like you can buy the Skiing Santa for 5 dollars at Target starting Dec 4th, as well, so if that works for you.

So, yeah, bummer about the 2nd GWP.  Last years GWP in Dec was great, the ice skating pond.  I wonder if they sold so well in November they just don't feel then need or have the inventory to incentivize Dec purchases even more.  

 

The Pond and the Christmas Carol set were both last year and both amazing. Both for $150.

But nope, this year we get the biggest piece of garbage Christmas set LEGO has ever made and $170.

[Karalora]

13 hours ago, Ardelon said:

I actually think the Home Alone set could fit nicely in the WV as the house of the local Scrooge who needs to be reformed - or after his reformation, with him hosting a Christmas party in his front garden/courtyard, with a big Christmas tree, ice sculptures, and what not. Its not relevant to my purchases, but I just wanted to add another point of view on the set and its role in the WV. 

Oh sure, there are plenty of ways to potentially use that set (as well as some others like Hogsmeade) in your WV, I just don't think it's a slam-dunk and it would be nice to get something more intentionally designed to be a big hub for the village.

For that matter, I'm not crazy about private residences being part of the WV. I feel like it's supposed to represent a public setting, with the townsfolk gathering to do their holiday activities. I picked up the Cabin way back when, but I only built it a couple of times before I went "nah" and parted it out into my larger collection. I'm not terribly interested in Santa's Visit this year for the same reason.

[RichardGoring]

Home Alone just feels like it's on a different scale to the other WV sets though. Not just larger, but a different scale. I think it comes from trying to represent a real-world place. It's the same with the sitcom sets and The Simpsons. Compare that to the modulars or WV sets which are impressions of places and so don't need realistic scales. I do think that the modulars and WV are the same scale. Different sizes, as they represent different types of building, but they feel more cohesive to me. Home Alone and the sitcom sets stand out a bit too much.

However, it's nitpicking, and I certainly think that you could put them all together and have something that still looks fabulous.

[CDM]

35 minutes ago, Karalora said:

For that matter, I'm not crazy about private residences being part of the WV. I feel like it's supposed to represent a public setting, with the townsfolk gathering to do their holiday activities.

I've always associated Winter Village displays, Lego or otherwise, to be made up of public buildings and private homes, the latter mainly due to the wide variety of ways a house or cottage could be decorated for the holidays. Growing up all of the ceramic village displays I remember all had house structures. But with that said, I appreciate that it's all subjective.

[Lion King]

Yeah I hardly consider Home Alone set as a part of Winter Village. I mean Home Alone set does look Fantatic but… to me, I feel like it’s too much. So I wlll stick with WV sets in future. 

Also, Home Alone set’s minifigures are more fleshie than yellowing (same for Scoorge GWP last year). It’s petty odd to see a blend of fleshie and yellowie minifigures. Really, it’s up to lego fans to swap yellowie minifigures with fleshie ones and vice versa. 

I agree with @RichardGoring on different scales.