At least there’s a music theme going on, and Peter Quill does like his tunes. But it’s still consistently a let down, and doesn’t really scream GOTG or Christmas much. The holiday season is fast approaching, and that means new LEGO Advent Calendars! New for 2022, we now have our very first detailed look at two new sets – 76231 Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar and 75340 Star Wars Advent Calendar, which should be released on 1 September 2022, as is tradition. On Day 9, we get an extremely festive and fun minifigure with Nebula in an ugly Christmas sweater! She also has a wrapped present, but the highlight is her Christmas sweater which has a crude Thanos knitted into it, as well as what I believe are Infinity Stone baubles on each side. On Day 21, we get what looks like an incomplete build, suggesting that we’ll have a few days of components to build some sort of ship, perhaps a Sleigh?

Based on the Milano Spaceship from the first Guardians of the Galaxy, there is some excellent part usage here to translate the Milano’s bird-like silhouette to this microscale build.On Day 14, we get a big orange ship, aka The Guardians’ Ship aka The Benatar. It’s not the best-looking ship, although it does capture the general look of the Guardians’ Ship with its shape and unmistakeable colour scheme. Day 13 of the LEGO GOTG Advent Calendar begins to try and make amends for the last few days with a Mantis minifigure! Day 15 is a Candy Cane. That’s it. A large Candy Cane decoration. I guess it’s Christmas after all, and there blow-up Candy Cane decorations in the GOTG Holiday Special, but this could pop out of the City or LEGO Friends Advent Calendar, and it wouldn’t be out of place at all. The 24 gifts contained in this special Advent calendar combine wonderfully with other LEGO Marvel Studio sets to build and invent endless stories or create impressive decorations. LEGO Marvel 76231 Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar launches alongside four other seasonal sets in 75340 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar, 76404 LEGO Harry Potter Advent Calendar, 60352 LEGO CITY Advent Calendar and 41706 LEGO Friends Advent Calendar. No matter your interest, that line-up should have something for everyone to enjoy over the holiday season.

LEGO Marvel 76231 Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar manages to stand out as an absurd festive celebration in space among the rest of the 2022 LEGO advent calendar range. It does this by featuring a vast array of deep-cut references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, adorable details on exclusive minifigures and rare characters that have been featured in mostly retired or more expensive models. Well would you look at that, we did for three for three with Day 19’s Groot minifigure. We get a young adult version of Groot, which has a dark tan colour scheme, and really nice detailed printing across his torso and legs. I was unaware of Advent calendars until a few years ago. My parents were secular, and although my family celebrated Christmas in a broad sense, we focused exclusively on the "family" and "togetherness" parts of the equation, rather than on the religious aspects. Years later, I married a Catholic woman, and I learned more about the ceremonies and the traditions that lead up to Christmas. But it was only when we had our son that I learned about Advent calendars. If you’re wondering why Drax is Green, it’s a nod to his comic book appearance, where he’s depicted as green instead of grey like in the James Gunn movies. This is a really nice nod to the character, that will delight Marvel comicbook fans, as it would’ve been really hard to get a green variant of Drax otherwise. Theme: LEGO Marvel Set name: 76231 Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar Release: September 1, 2022The Star Wars Advent Calendar ( see it at Walmart) is mostly spacecraft and droid builds from the movies. My favorite was a miniature AT-ST Walker, which the designers depicted in perfect minimalist fashion. I loved the Advanced TIE Fighter, which again captured the key design elements of the build in a very spare, suggestive manner. And in terms of Christmas-themed accessories, you cannot get cuter than R2-D2 in a Christmas sweater. The countdown to Christmas is on with The LEGO Guardians of Galaxy Advent Calendar, much to the delight of fans. Behind each of the 24 windows is a buildable toy to play with or decorate a room. This year, I’ll be counting down 4 Advent Calendars – Star Wars, Harry Potter, Friends and the GOTG one. Following 2021’s excellent Marvel/Avengers-themed Advent Calendar, we’re getting a Guardians of the Galaxy-theme Advent Calendar, featuring characters and settings from the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.

From left to right, we have Yondu’s Arrow, an Annulax Battery (from GOTG Volume 2), a Quarnyx Battery (from the Prison Scene in GOTG 1), an eyeball that he gets Baby Groot to collect, and the prisoner’s prosthetic leg from the same Prison Break scene in GOTG 1. It’s one of the most creative Advent Calendar Christmas trees yet, and it pairs remarkably well with Groot, who’s, well, a sentient tree. It also fits the scene from the GOTG Holiday special where Groot serves as a Christmas Tree, so this is both accurate and festive all at the same time. Here we are with Day 11 of the LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar with a Mining Pod and Escape pod!The only bright point is the minifigure lineup, in which you can get the entire Guardians of the Galaxy team (minus Gamora) for a fairly accessible price, as well as Drax and Nebula in their festive ugly Christmas sweaters. We should also get a glimpse of the LEGO City, Harry Potter and LEGO Friends Advent calendars soon! Here’s a closer look at the torso, which is a great exclusive, and one of the chief reasons I was looking forward to the Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar. Eh, Day 13 gives us yet another forgettable build with this Table of Food and Drinks. It’s honestly so boring, and unlike other builds, there’s nothing “Guardians of the Galaxy” about this build. It might seem like a box of random scraps, but each individual item in the crate has a special reference to the Guardians of the Galaxy films, and it was a lot of fun trying to figure out what each item was!

Compatible with other LEGO® sets – The gifts found within the calendar combine easily with all other LEGO Marvel building toys The minifigure is the same as the one found in 76913 The Guardians’ Ship, and also comes with a blue (dark azure) Fender Stratocaster-esque electric guitar. Whether you’re here for the first time, or have been following for years, I’ve really enjoyed reading every single comment, and for yet another successful year! The torso with the Ravagers design isn’t new, but has appeared only once in 76193 The Guardians’ Ship, making this a really budget-friendly way to get if you can’t afford the bigger ship!Both minifigures are great additions to the LEGO Marvel 2022 advent calendar and a vast improvement over the exclusive minifigures in the 2021 version, of which only one was appropriately festive. — LEGO Marvel 76231 Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar price — Mini build models – Buildable play experiences include a drone, a blaster, the Guardians’ spaceship, a snowman in Thanos’s armor and lots more Not bad from Day 10, and with so many cool and unique spaceship designs to draw from, I sure hope this won’t be the last micro-build we see! The image doesn’t spoil ALL of the contents, but in addition to C-3PO and R2-D2 in ugly christmas sweaters, we also get a beach Darth Vader, Snow Trooper, Battle Droid and a Clone Commander, which looks suspiciously like the one from the UCS Republic Gunship.