The Lego Advent Calendar...OF INSANITY!

My five year old discovered the wondrous world of Lego not too long ago. It’s been a real blast to sit alongside of him while he explores this vast plastic universe of brightly-colored interconnectedness, rediscovering its joys and wonders and appreciating the improvements and expansions they’ve made since I was his age.

So as the holidays approached, it made all the sense in the world that we should hook the kid up with one of the Lego advent calendars. Like any advent calendar, it has one compartment per day for each day of December leading up to Christmas, and inside of each one, there’s a small Lego item. Santa Claus informed me that among the presents he’ll be bringing for my eldest this year, he’ll have some Legos in tow, and among those, there will probably be some from the medieval Kingdoms collection. You know, knights, wizards, wenches, castles, all that stuff. Thus, we decided that we’d get the advent calendar of the same theme. Kinda tie it all together, know what I’m saying?

For some reason, I had it in my mind that, being an advent calendar, this thing would have a bit of a holiday theme about it. Where would I get such a crazy idea? Who knows. This time of year gives a man funny ideas. As you can see, the castle pictured on the box is covered in snow, and the little fold down flap that comes down to reveal the twenty-four compartments shows a two-dimensional Christmas tree.


And that’s about where the holiday imagery ends.

Day 1, my son popped open the first compartment and found....a blacksmith.

Now sure, a blacksmith isn’t necessarily a non-holiday image. Blacksmiths like Christmas, Jewish blacksmiths like Hanukkah, pagan blacksmiths like to get all solsticey. They might even use their hammers and anvils to create some holiday-themed metal masterpiece -- ya know, like the Pantera Christmas album.

But then more days passed, and with them came the eager opening of more compartments, only to reveal Lego items that were in no way, shape, or form holiday-related. In fact, the next four days each featured weapons.




That thing is clearly designed for running some motherfuckers through. Perhaps they were naughty.

As the days passed and more compartments were thrown open, I felt a perverse sort of glee emerging within me. You don’t typically associate violence with advent calendars or the holidays, yet here it was. “What’s gonna be tomorrow?” I giggled. “An executioner? A rack? The black plague?”

Meanwhile, our friends Jeff and Tara were experiencing some WTF moments of their own in reaction to the City themed Lego advent calendar. While not quite as violent as Kingdoms calendar, its items weren’t much more holidayish.

Okay, so there’s a snowman.

Back in the Kingdom, the bloodshed seemed like it might be abating on day 7 when the Queen emerged with her froggy, who we can only assume needs a kiss in order to regain his handsomeness.


Such warm images were not to last, for day 10 brought us this:


The Christmas Skeleton? The fuck?

Then right on the heels of that poor dead bastard came the Lego dungeon.


We gave him some hair for Christmas. And a sword since there seem to be so many laying around.

As un-holiday-esque as all this has been, I can’t say it hasn’t been enjoyable. Every morning, the kid comes downstairs with his little brother, they wiggle around in our bed enough to make sure we’re wide awake, then announces, “I’m doing calendar!” Then he sprints to the kitchen to see what the new day has to offer.

Easily the most holiday-related items came on days 16 and 17 with the arrival of the serving wench and her keg of hearty ale.


I don’t know about you, but as the holidays approach, thoughts of all those seasonal brews hitting the shelves make my mouth water.


And cleavage, while not the reason for the season, is reason enough in and of itself.

There was also a catapult, which I have to show you because catapults rule, do they not?


Just a few days left, a few more compartments to open, a few more discoveries to make. May your holidays continue to be full of surprises and may the violence be minimal.