Christmas comes but once a year, and when it comes it brings good cheer. But it’s not just cheer the festive period bestows upon us, it’s also a time to expand the Winter Village with a brand new set. This year’s offering is a little more traditional and grounded in reality, with a festive-tinged family home and a visit from Santa Claus. Former fan designer Chris McVeigh is once again behind the latest addition to the Winter Village Collection. It may not be Christmas just yet but there are only 106 days to go, making it the perfect time to take a closer look at the 2021 Winter Village Collection set – Santa’s Visit.
Product Description
If you’re dreaming of the perfect Christmas Eve, get the festive season off to a magical start with this LEGO® Santa’s Visit (10293) model building set. It’s the ideal way to spend quality time with a cosy project for adults and families. Build the intricate Christmas house and explore all of the model’s jolly features before placing it on display.
A build packed with traditions Spot all the ingredients that make Christmas Eve so special. There are stockings on the fireplace, a plate of cookies with milk for Santa, and even a place setting for him at the dining table. The exterior is equally detailed. See the Christmas tree, which lights up when you press down gently on the tree top. Extra details complete the cheerful scene with presents, a postbox and brick-built boughs under the ‘snow’-topped roof.
- Set Name: Santa’s Visit
- Set Number: 10293
- Theme: Winter Village Collection
- Pieces: 1445
- RRP: £89.99/$99.99/€99.99
- Measurements: 19 cm high, 27 cm wide and 16 cm deep
- Availability: LEGO Stores & LEGO.com from October 1st
For over 10 years, Christmas has been a time for LEGO fans to eagerly await the reveal of a new Winter Village set. The 2021 set is titled ‘Santa’s Visit’ and is a little more traditional compared to the past couple of releases. But it still retains the whimsical nature we’ve come to expect from the Winter Village sets. There are certain traits most Winter Village sets contain, they include snowy coverings, open-backed buildings, a Christmas tree and of course a light brick.
The set offers the ability to be built by multiple people, making it the ideal festive family activity. This basically splits the build across two instruction booklets. The first allows you to build a snowy strip of scenery and another new take on the humble Christmas tree. Who knew there were so many different ways to build a Christmas tree with LEGO bricks. This one is a lot more advanced than most as it can actually be lit up. A base houses a light brick, over which the body of the tree sits. It’s not connected by clutch power, this allows the tree to be pushed down, which activates the light brick. Each level of the tree is sandwiched between a layer of clear plates. So when lit, the light brick shines through clear sections. It’s a clever way to not only incorporate the traditional light brick into the set but also offer a new take on a tree. Plus it’s nice to have the light brick used for something other than a fireplace or room light.
The strip of scenery acts as a sort of disconnected front gate. It’s a simple build but includes a few nice details. Especially the quaint little postbox and the old fashioned lantern framing the entrance. This step of the build also features a selection of brick-built gifts. Similar to LEGO Christmas trees, there seems to be an endless amount of ways to construct a mini present.
The actual house evokes the essence of some of the earlier Winter Village sets. In fact, it has a colour scheme similar to the 2012 Winter Village Cottage. The layout of the house is almost ‘L’ shape, with the central angles corner acting as the main doorway, flanked by two wings. One on the left featuring a chimney and the right has a two-time sloped roof.
The exterior of the house is decorated with various festive paraphernalia. This includes boughs of Holly trimming the window ledges, plenty of white elements to represent a fresh dusting of snow, with small drifts piled up in front of the house. One of the most intriguing festive trims can be found bordering the large ‘A’ framed roof. This uses a recoloured version of the claw element commonly used with Minifigures, most famously Wolverine.
Much of the detail is reserved for the interior, which is nice and open thanks to the building’s layout. The focus is on the open plan downstairs area, where you’ll find a kitchen, dining room and lounge area. In a similar fashion to the Modular Buildings Collection sets, it’s the various little details that add to the charm of the set. A clever use of parts gives us a fun little food mixer and sink. Moving to the dining room and the table is decorated with a simple runner and another impressive use of the NEXO shield. The lounge area is a little small but it includes a delightful play feature. There’s a comfy chair and table of treats next to a roaring fireplace, which just so happens to be the traditional entry point for Santa.
The chimney is a hollow structure, with its entry point outside on the roof, you know, where you’d expect it to be. Dropping Santa down causes him to appear inside the house through the fireplace, which has flip-down flames to stop any burnt bottoms. Admittingly it’s a rather violent entrance but with so many presents to deliver, Santa does have time for finesse.
There’s a small mezzanine area to the left of the house, which is where the little girl sleeps and dreams of Santa’s visit. The decoration of her room suggests she’s a space fan with a rocket poster on the wall and a small planet model hanging from the ceiling. It does seem like a missed opportunity to not slip in a cheeky classic space reference, even if it was on the Minifigure.
The set features four Minifigures, two adults, a young girl and the main man himself – Santa. The family of Minifigures are fairly standard, but they all have great alternate faces. Tying into my comment about classic space, it would have been extremely awesome if the girl’s pyjamas featured a classic space logo pattern. But as it stands the unique festive design is still quite nice. The modern-day take on Santa was first introduced in the CMF range. This gave him the correct hat and beard. The version included in this features an updated design, with a new face print tweaked torso design and dual moulded legs, finally giving Santa his boots.
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This set was provided by the LEGO Group for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
