Christmas Surprise

So it's Christmas and therefore once again time for the Brickish Association Christmas party. Displaced from our customary LEGOLAND Windsor venue by renovation work at the LEGOLAND Hotel we were nevertheless able to continue the annual Brickish party tradition thanks to the organisational skills of James Camplin and the flexibility of LEGOLAND Senior Designer and Chief Model Maker Guy Bagley, so thanks guys for your hard work! Party activities included the opportunity to build the suitably festive Miniland scale figure below, and you can find a brief account of the event here.

Despite all the on-site building work we were still able to spend some time at LEGOLAND Windsor during the event, and in addition to a tour of the Model Shop and a stroll through Star Wars Miniland (which, it appears, has had a few upgrades since my previous visit) we got to visit the Big Shop. With LEGOLAND owned by Merlin rather than LEGO these days, the Big Shop isn't a bona fide LEGO brand store, although it does carry many of the LEGO Exclusives not generally available outside LEGO's own stores.

Christmas party organiser James had managed to negotiate a discount at the shop for Brickish members attending the event so we piled through the doors with particular enthusiasm. I was able to find the two sets on my hit list, one of which was Set 75045 Republic AV-7 Anti-Vehicle Cannon which completed my 2014 Star Wars collection, but I didn't have plans to pick up anything else. As it happens, however, a couple of things did catch my eye....

Firstly, I was surprised to find Set 40034 Christmas Train (above, courtesy of my youngster who built it earlier today) for sale in the shop.  According to Brickset this 82-piece Seasonal polybag was only available at retail for about a month back in late 2012 and it hasn't to my knowledge been seen anywhere since. I therefore wasn't expecting to see a load of them available for purchase, and couldn't resist picking up an extra.

The other unexpected find was Set 30197 Snowman (above). This polybag contains 60 pieces and is part of the 2014 Creator line-up. I'd never seen this set before and hadn't even seen any reports of UK availability so again it was a welcome discovery. While smaller than this year's more widely-available Set 40093 Snowman, it's still cute and well worth picking up if you can find it; there were still a bunch left in the shop yesterday afternoon so you might want to drop in if you're local.

I'm currently compiling my 2014 Gimme LEGO Awards; if I can finish the Awards posting in time then I'll publish it before Christmas, so keep 'em peeled just in case.... In the more likely event that my Awards posting appears between Christmas and New Year, however, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all Gimme LEGO readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!