It was so fun to read what everyone else got, and I was really glad to see LEGO truly randomise the chocolate frog cards! This year, in addition to Harry Potter, I’ll also be counting down the Star Wars, Friends and Marvel Advent Calendars as well, making it the biggest and most involved year yet! One of Harry’s first stops in Diagon Alley is Gringotts, as Hagrid takes him there to uncover his family fortune that James and Lily Potter left for him. Ending on a top is quite meh, and in many ways encapsulates this year’s Harry Potter Advent Calendar. The 24 gifts found within this special holiday calendar combine easily with all other LEGO Harry Potter sets for endless creative building, imaginative play and impressive displays.

Inside the box you will find a collection of 24 jewels and accessories including bracelets, pens, earrings, necklaces, among others! I didn’t receive any of these sets for free this year – they were all bought by either me, or Cam in the case of the Star Wars one.And that’s it for Day 16 – no building required, but it’s nice to get some more Wizarding items, and also a chocolate frog card. When picking Harry up from the Dursleys, Hagrid casts a spell on Dudley, threatening to turn him into a pig – adding just a pig tail as a warning. For day 5’s pink cake piece, I was originally confused because in the Philosopher’s Stone book it says Hagrid spells it correctly instead of making mistakes on the “happy” and “birthday”. We continue on the theme of Harry Potter at Privet Drive – you might remember the Fireplace with Hogwarts letters whizzing out, as Uncle Vernon attempts to block it – hence the black dividier that goes into it.

Not the most exciting window, but it does give you the right elements to bring to life the scene from Philosopher’s Stone in Harry’s first year! With 24 windows that open every day until Christmas, your December promises many pleasant surprises! While some overlap in figures, that calendar was a good supplement to the Clocktower set, which also had the Yule ball as theme. Day 24 of the 2021 LEGO Harry Potter Advent Calendar isn’t really a surprise as it’s been featured heavily on the box and cover, as it’s also a crucial element for this year’s board game “gimmick” – you get a game spinner, that acts as a spinning dice!I think the films are just so much bigger particularly for this age range and, I would guess, they may actually have their licence from WB somehow along with the DC superheroes. One difference is that 2021 didn’t really have a strong focus on Christmas, with only two models linked to this. He should come with a pink umbrella, which he can use to punish children, who eat cake before given permission (see 8 December entry). Day 5 of the 2021 Harry Potter Advent Calendar gives us more delightful references from the Philosopher’s Stone, with Hagrid’s Birthday cake, given to Harry for his 11th birthday!

I was a little disappointed with the Hedwig and chocolate frog as we had already received these in prior year calendars. There’s a lot more room for improvement, and I hope if they continue with the Harry Potter Advent Calendars, we’ll go back to building a specific scene or location, or just have a more cohesive experience where you get to connect all the builds together to form a much larger scene. A little bit of a plain build, and very strange not to get a minifigure out of the box, but let’s hope that we get one in Day 2! The characters’ tops are printed on both sides, and all are slightly different from previous releases. But it did include a little game, though I’m not sure it could keep the attention for long (though I did publish a set of house rules to make it more interesting).Chocolate Frog Card tiles are meant to be random, so I’m really interested to know if everyone got the same card – mine being Seraphina Picquery, who you might remember from the Fantastic Beasts 2 movie, as the President of the Magical Congress of the United States of America.