Advent Calendar wrap-up: Lego Princesses, Schleich, and Dirds

Happy New Year!  Before I launch into the regular reviews that I have planned for January, I figured I should close out the advent calendar series by showing you the last three calendars that I have on hand.  I actually only purchased two of these for review, and the third one, Lego's Disney Princess calendar, was an incredibly thoughtful and timely gift from my mother-in-law...who had no idea that I was planning an advent calendar series for the blog!  She knows me very well.

Here are the three remaining calendars:

From left: Lego Disney Princesses, Sky and Ocean building blocks, and Schleich Horse Club.

I actually bought one other calendar, an EXIT escape room calendar that cost about $46:

I like the EXIT escape room games, but this calendar has nothing to do with dolls or toys, so it didn't seem very well suited to the blog.

In contrast, the Lego Disney Princess advent calendar is perfectly suited to the blog, so I really can't believe that I didn't find and buy it for myself.  It somehow escaped my radar.

But, thankfully, my mother-in-law saved the day:

Lego Disney Princess advent calendar, $44.99.

It's rude to look up the price of a gift, but for reference, I felt like I had to.  This calendar's suggested retail price is $44.99, but it can be found on sale for a bit less than that.

The calendar features five Disney Princesses: Elsa, Moana, Mirabel, Tiana, and Ariel:

I wonder how they came up with this specific mix of Princesses?  It certainly feels like there was an effort to be inclusive of different ethnicities.  Also, with the exception of Tiana, these Princesses have fairly recent movies--if you include Moana 2 and the live action Little Mermaid.

This calendar has a "spin to play" board game feature, too:

There's not a lot of explanation, but there's a dreidel-like spinner that can be used to advance the figures on a colored path:

I have no idea what the rules or goals of this game are, since there are no instructions.  It's just a simple race-to-the-finish game, I guess.  And there's room for creative kids to step in and invent their own rules!

The front flap of the calendar folds down to expose the game board.  This reveals a lovely picture of Cinderella's castle:

The 24 numbered flaps are all the same size, but they're not arranged in order.  A few of the numbers are well-camouflaged in the winter scene, too:

That's a nice-looking calendar.

For example, it was a little tricky to find number one, which is nestled into a patch of trees on the left hand side:

The inside of the door flap has a picture of the contents, so the surprise is revealed right away.  Number one is Moana:

Or I assume it's Moana.  The little picture actually doesn't look that much like Moana to me.  The real Moana has a lot more skin showing:

All of the pieces required to build Moana were inside a plastic bag:

Moana herself came in three pieces (body, face, hair) and she also has pieces to make a Christmas present:

I think Moana's present is only supposed to have one green bow on top, but I got an extra:

This Moana is super-tiny.  She's smaller than a standard Lego Minifigure and has a head shape like a Lego Friends figure:

Lego standard Rapunzel (left) and micro Moana (right).

Moana has all of the elements of the original movie costume, but there's no visible skin on her shoulders or midriff, and she has no legs, so the outfit doesn't look quite right.

She looks cute on the colorful game board, though!

Door number two was also tricky to find, hidden against the spires of the castle:

This door shows a little piece of scenery on the back:

What is that supposed to be?

That flap picture also serves as the instructions for turning this pile of pieces:

Into this scene (with a few extra pieces left over):

I'm still not sure what it is.

I'm guessing that the scene is meant to be a piece of Moana's beach:

With a very short tree.

The scenery was more fun to build than the Moana figure, but I was still hoping for another figure behind door number three:

Yep!  We got Ariel this time:

Ariel almost came with enough extra pieces to build a whole second present:

If the pattern holds, door number four should have some scenery for Ariel:

Ooh!  This is a pretty castle-like thing:

This was the most complicated set to build so far:

Which is still not very complicated.

And it looks nice when assembled!

I can't be sure that this structure goes with Ariel, but the water-like blue base and coral-colored flowers work well with her:

Under the sea!

Because I have three full advent calendars to get through today, I didn't have time to photograph all of the flaps individually.  Instead, I opened the rest of the doors all at once:

This is a good time to mention that the structure of this calendar is made entirely out of cardboard, so it'll be easy to recycle.  Given the mess in my basement left over from the advent calendar series, easy recycling is a huge plus.

After I'd emptied the calendar, I built all of the remaining sets:

Door number five had the spinner for the board game:

Door number six held Moana's pig, Pua, complete with a top hat and a present:

Door number seven contained the pieces for Moana's boat, which is one of the better sets in the whole calendar:

It looks really good, and Moana can even ride on it!

See the light as it shines on the sea?  It's blinding!

Door eight also had a fun little scene, including a bust of Prince Eric's head, and a box with some gems and dinglehoppers:

Ariel is smitten!

Oh, Eric.

It wasn't until flap number nine that I got another Princess.  It's Elsa:

Love her eyebrows.

Number ten was a see-saw and a little Snowgie with no legs:

Thanks to DB for setting me straight about the Snowgie, by the way!  I've even seen the short film, Frozen Fever, but had totally forgotten about it and its little sneeze-induced creatures.

Gesundheit.

Unfortunately, there were two pieces missing for Elsa's ice castle, so I wasn't able to complete it:

There's nothing to mount that top spire.

Poor Elsa:

You'll never see me cry.

Door number twelve had Sven!  He's really cute:

Where's Kristoff?

And door thirteen was a sled, which I suspect also goes with the Frozen theme:

Even though a sled seems more like something Anna would use than Elsa:

Number fourteen was a piece of scenery:

The little frog and cooking theme here make me think of Tiana.

And, sure, enough, she was the next little figure that I got!

There was also a castle scene for Tiana:

No missing pieces here:

Door number seventeen veered off course a bit with a Christmas tree:

Then door number eighteen had another piece of scenery.  This must be Casa Madrigal:

But instead of getting Mirabel next, I got a pretty candle:

It was door number twenty that held Mirabel:

She's one of the best figures.  I like her hair and glasses...and the fact that she has legs.

She doesn't quite fit into the casita.  All of that hair gets in the way:

The last four doors had pieces of a larger castle.  There was a left tower:

An entryway with a clock:

I'm getting Cinderella vibes!

The right tower:

And a balcony:

These all fit together to make Cinderella's castle!

Yay!

Or it looks like Cinderella's castle to me, with the light blue accents and that clock.  But, sadly, there's no Cinderella figure in this set.

Still, the large castle makes an excellent finale for the calendar, and was definitely the most fun thing to build.

So, to summarize, this calendar has three larger decorative pieces:

And twenty one scenery and Minifigure sets:

There's a lot to play with here, and I like how each mini Princess has her own castle-like structure plus another bit of scenery.  Two of the Princesses even have animal friends, which is great.

I think Tiana and Ariel have the best accessories:

Elsa would be in the running if it weren't for the missing parts of her castle, as would Moana if her island scene was bigger or more playable.

I like how there's something to build every day with this calendar, although the assembly of the Princesses is very simple, and assembly of the accessories relies on deciphering a small picture on the back of the flap.   I didn't try to make new structures out of the mix of Lego pieces that I'd accumulated by the end, but that'd certainly be an extra perk for creative kids who love to build.

This set would do a good job of keeping young Disney-lovers occupied throughout December, with a mix of suspense, building projects, imaginative play, and even a simple board game.  And the Princess figures and larger accessories could certainly endure for much longer.

Here are the basics:

Best toy: all of the Princesses.  But if I have to pick: Mirabel

Worst toy: Elsa's castle with missing pieces

Number of good surprises: 23 (everything except the set with missing pieces)

Number of really good surprises: 11 (all of the minis and the pieces to build the big castle)

Excitement rating, out of 10: this was a wonderful surprise gift, so excitement was high!

Aesthetic rating, out of 10: 8

The next calendar that I want to look at is a Horse Club set made by Schleich.

The cover of the calendar gives away every single surprise that's inside, so don't look too closely if you enjoy suspense:

Horse Club advent calendar by Schleich, $34.99.

Schleich has been making a Horse Club advent calendar every year for the last several years, and I'm not sure this is the best one, but it's the most recent and therefore the most affordable.

I became interested in Horse Club after seeing the big house and stable set in Amazon's Holiday Book:

This set looks amazing, with tons of furniture, horses, and riders--all for about $100.  It seems too good to be true, so I might have to review it someday to see what's up.

In the meantime, I figured that the calendar would give me a little taste for the quality and functionality of the Horse Club toys.

The back of the box has a maze activity, and some photographs of other available sets:

The other sets are all appealing to me.  Like, look at the detail in this riding arena:

(It costs $100)

I also like the smaller sets, especially the redheaded rider, Hannah:

The names of all the Horse Club characters are written underneath their pictures on the side of the box:

I don't think that Horse Club is a book or television series or anything like that, just a vast collection of Schleich horses, riders, and accessories.

It's dangerous for me to browse all of the available products.  It takes me back to my model horse collecting days.

Anyway, the calendar itself has a fun wintery scene with the four main Horse Club characters:

This design has a lot of the things I like about advent calendars.  The scene is busy and fun to look at, and there are several animals, like this cute cat:

And a horse--of course:

The girls look a little silly here, especially Sarah:

And Hannah has a funny expression and posture, too, as she plays with her dog:

They all look better on other parts of the box:

Except for the fact that Sofia is missing her feet.

That image was condensed and re-arranged from the official Horse Club portrait:

Which explains why Sofia's feet are wonky.

Despite a little bit of strangeness, the box art is nice, and the scene draws me in.  The flap numbers are not particularly hard to find, but number one is on a window, which I appreciate:

There's a plastic bag inside that's hiding the contents:

It's a rider!  I think this is Lisa?

Lisa came in four pieces that were easy to assemble.

She's about 3.5 inches tall, and is wearing a painted teal reindeer sweater with riding pants and boots:

She has molded medium brown hair that falls over her left shoulder.  This looks pretty, and feels like the kind of thing that would interfere with head movement, but since she doesn't have an articulated neck, it doesn't matter:

I like Lisa's dark brown eyes and delicate eyebrows, and all of the face paint is neatly done (especially for a figure this small!) but the light pink lip color is not very realistic.

The molded hair looks very pretty from the back, too, and I'm excited to see signs of articulation in Lisa's knees!

Indeed, Lisa has six points of articulation (shoulders, hips, knees):

I wish that she had elbow joints, too, since those make horseback riding poses easier, but at least her legs are well-articulated.

You have to be careful with Schleich riding figures, as I've discovered, because not all of them have leg articulation.  Some of them come with permanently bent or permanently straight legs, neither of which is versatile:

Permanently bent.

Permanently straight (with no arm articulation, either).

At 3.5 inches tall, Lisa is shorter than Sophia from Unicorn Academy:

Schleich Horse Club figure (left) and Sophia from Unicorn Academy (right).

She's also shorter than my 1:18 Lundby mom:

Schleich Horse Club figure (left) and 1:18 Lundby doll (right).

Schleich horses and riders are 1:24 scale.  That's larger than Breyer's 1:32 Stablemates, but smaller than 1:12 dollhouse dolls and Breyer Classic models.

Lisa was a great first surprise!  Let's see what's behind door number two:

The flap was just to the right of that cute cat picture...and there was a cat inside!

The cat has a black and white tuxedo pattern, with bright orange eyes:

But she's enormous next to Lisa!

A Savannah cat, perhaps?

This cat is better suited to Lena:

Do you think Bruno would like her?

It's odd that the cat isn't in scale with the doll.  When I was admiring Schleich animals online, I assumed that they were all in the same scale, and I could, for example, buy some dogs and cats (and goats and pigs...) to go with the big Horse Club doll house.  Now I guess I'll have to re-think that whole idea.

Anyway, from this point on, I'll forego showing you the door flaps and just reveal what was hiding inside.  I should also mention that this calendar, like the last one, is made entirely out of cardboard and is fully recyclable.

Door number three's surprise was nowhere near as exciting as Lisa or the cat:

A glob of apples.

I guess the horses might get excited about a pile of red apples, but it's harder for me--especially because they're all molded together into one big piece.

Door number four also had some horse snacks:

A bunch of carrots!

Lisa can hold these carrots in either of her gripping hands:

Door number five had a vinyl halter and lead rope for a horse:

But we don't have a horse yet, so that's hard to appreciate.

Finally, with door number six (my favorite number!) there was another really good surprise:

Not only is there a horse, but some sort of harness for her!

The horse is beautiful.  She's a dark chestnut with a white blaze on her face:

Her mane is braided for show, and she has white markings on all four feet.  These markings are called socks if they don't reach the knee or hock, and stockings if they do:

She even has realistic molded detail on the bottoms of her hooves:

Love it.

I think I'll name her Manjari, which is a type of dark chocolate.

The white vinyl harness fits over Manjari's head and extends down to her hip:

I thought maybe the white halter and lead rope would also fit Manjari, but the halter is extremely tight, and I had to stretch it a lot to try and get it over the rigid ears.  I eventually gave up because I felt like I was going to break something:

Lisa is in scale with Manjari, thank goodness, and her hip and knee articulation allow her to ride reasonably well:

Manjari is certainly going to be the best surprise of the whole calendar, so it's a little sad to have her revealed so early on, but her presence certainly gives more play value to the set at this stage.

Door number seven was hiding a little mouse:

But, again, this mouse is not in scale with Lisa:

More like an armadillo.

The mouse is in scale with the cat...sort-of:

It's more like a rat.

The eighth surprise was this purple ribbon halter with a chain nose piece:

This fits Manjari nicely, and now Lisa can lead her around:

The ninth surprise was a wheel of gold plastic horse head decorations:

These fit onto the harness (with some effort) and make it look fancier:

I have a few critiques here.  First of all, why not package the harness with the decorations?  That would have made for a more exciting surprise.  Manjari didn't need the harness to be packaged with her: she's exciting enough on her own. 

Also, there are only six decorations.  Between the harness and the bridle, there are thirteen holes that could accommodate decorations.  So there's no way to cover all of the holes, which is frustrating and looks unfinished.

Surprise number ten seems a little lame, but I actually love it:

It's a curry comb, for grooming the horses!  Grooming horses is something I used to dream about as a kid, and then something I actively enjoyed as a teenager who rode and took care of actual horses.  So having this as an accessory adds to the realism and imagination value of the set quite a lot.

Lisa can hold the curry comb, although it's a little big for her:

Door number eleven had another pile of apples--this time green:

Green glob.

And door twelve, the halfway point, had a bale of hay:

This is made out of plastic and looks like it should open down the middle:

But it doesn't.  And why should it?  Hay bales don't open like boxes.  Still, it would have been more interesting if it opened.

Door number thirteen held a black brush:

This is a necessary pair for the curry comb, and was a welcome surprise:

The fourteenth prize was a yellow plastic ribbon with a little horse head molded onto the middle:

There's a hook on the back of the ribbon so it can be attached to a horse's bridle, but we don't have a bridle that fits yet.

I think a yellow ribbon signifies third place, which is pretty good.  I got plenty of those in my day.

Door fifteen had an ornate plastic frame and a sticker:

This would have been a really fun surprise (the design of the frame is lovely!) except for the fact that the sticker doesn't fill the frame.  It's way too small:

That's embarrassing.

Also, I'm not sure who's in the picture.  It's not Manjari (only one white sock) and the girl looks more like Hannah than Lisa.

The sixteenth toy was this green plastic bucket:

Buckets are useful around horses, for sure, but this one is really big!

Door seventeen had a pair of vinyl leg wraps:

These aren't very exciting, but they fit on Manjari's legs easily:

Leaving a bit of open space on the opposite side:

Door number eighteen had an empty plastic crate:

This is nice for holding the apples and carrots:

Door nineteen had a small vinyl riding hat:

Which fits on Lisa's head nicely:

The twentieth door had a tiny little hoof pick:

Again, this seems a little boring, but I like my grooming tools!

What was actually boring was door number twenty one, which had two more leg wraps:

Why not put all of the leg wraps together?  Splitting them between two days is really stretching it.

The twenty second surprise made up for that, though.  It's a cute little grooming box:

It hinges open in front:

And can hold all of the grooming tools:

Unfortunately, the box is too big and heavy for Lisa to carry:

The penultimate door had a big pitch fork, for mucking out stalls:

And when I say big, I mean really big!

Behold, my mighty pitchfork!

For reference, pitch forks should be shorter and narrower:

The final door held the little foal:

She's adorable, and makes an excellent final surprise!

She has a light chestnut coat with white socks on two of her feet:

Her muzzle is dark, and she has a blaze:

There's a lot of molded hair detail on these horses, too, which you can see in the close-up photos.

The filly looks great with her mother:

I think I'll name her Twix.

I thought maybe the white vinyl halter was meant for Twix, since it's too small for Manjari, but it's way too big!

Looks like headgear.

Once I knew for certain that the halter must be for Manjari, I got more bold with my efforts to stretch it over her ears...and that finally worked:

The halter doesn't fit very well, though.  The decorative headband bows out away from Manjari's head, while the other upper straps are stretched too tight.

Also, the vinyl lead rope is so stiff that Lisa can't stand upright while she's holding it.  Or, rather, she can stand upright, but only in a very specific and precarious splay-legged, leaned-back position:

There's an emerging theme here, where the toys look good, but they don't necessarily work well together.

But now at least we can give Manjari her third place ribbon:

And completely obstruct her view.

All told, this calendar had eighteen horse-themed accessories:

Some of these made underwhelming daily surprises.  For example, I found the apples, the hay bale, and the leg wraps pretty disappointing.  The frame, halter, and harness decorations shouldn't have been disappointing, but because the halter didn't fit well, the fame's sticker is too small, and there weren't enough harness decorations, these items were underwhelming as well.  I appreciate all of the grooming tools, though, and love the little box that holds them.  And the pitch fork and bucket, while oversized, are nice pieces to have around for accurate horse care games.

The best parts of the set were Lisa (with her riding hat), the horses, and the smaller animals:

I'm disappointed that the cat and the mouse are in a completely different scale, and I also wish I'd gotten a conventional saddle and bridle to use with Manjari instead of that harness.  What is the harness even for?  But for kids who have a larger collection of Horse Club toys, the harness might be more unique and exciting than a regular saddle.

So, overall, while this calendar looks nice, and some of the toys are great, the inequality of the surprises diminished my experience and didn't fit well with the advent calendar format.  A Schleich calendar with a different animal every day would be amazing...but probably also quite expensive.  

I think that if I'd spent some extra money and bought one of the earlier Horse Club calendars, I'd have had a better experience.  Take a look at the 2023 calendar:

This one has a lot of repeat items, like the apples, carrots, hay bale, and bucket.  And there aren't any grooming tools, which is a drag.  But the horses look great, there's a full tack set, and the dog appears to be in scale with the rider.

The 2022 calendar looks even better:

This one has the redheaded Hannah, which is a bonus, and also two beautiful horses, regular tack, all of the grooming tools and box, an adorable (in scale?) puppy, two chicks, and a squirrel!  This would have been a bargain for $34.99, but is now selling for more like $100.

However, in the end, I'm not sure advent calendars are the best way to buy these toys.  If I'm ever feeling like I need more Schleich in my life, rather than spend a ton on an older calendar, I'll probably plunk down the $55 necessary to get all four girls with their horses, tack, and riding helmets:

That looks like a fun set.

Here are the basics for the Schleich calendar:

Best toy: both horses are great, but I'll say the big horse

Worst toy: there were a few duds.  I guess the apple clumps are the worst?

Number of good surprises: 11

Number of really good surprises: 5 (the animals and Lisa)

Excitement rating, out of 10: 7 (moments of high excitement mixed with a lot of indifference)

Aesthetic rating, out of 10: 7

The last calendar that I want to show you is a little obscure.  It's one of the zillions of mass-produced off-brand calendars that can be found on Amazon these days.  I tend to avoid this type of thing, or at least I try to, but the building block element and the subject matter (birds and marine organisms) was too tempting to resist:

Except that it very clearly says "dirds and marine organisms:"

And, maybe I'm a terrible person, but translation mistakes like this crack me up every time.  I might never say "birds" normally again.

Not only does this calendar make me giggle, but every single day has the building block pieces necessary to build not one but three different animals!

That's impressive.

So it's like every day has a mini Lego Creator set.  Sounds too good to be true, right?  Especially because this calendar only cost $18.  That's definitely the cheapest suggested retail price of any calendar in the whole series, although I found a few things on sale for less.

The cover flap of this calendar opens to reveal the perforated doors.  The back side of the flap has all of the primary dirds and marine organisms displayed in big, bold photographs: 

It's not a bad calendar to look at, but it's not especially festive, either.

Here's a closer look at the flap:

This is a little disappointing, since it gives away all of the surprises, but it was fun to look through and see how each animal is labeled.

Most of the labels are real English words (no more typos!), but they don't always correctly identify the animal.  For example, this purple dird doesn't look much like a pigeon:

That's a swallow tail.

And this is certainly not an eagle:

Not with that beak, anyway.

Maybe it's supposed to be a kingfisher?

The colors fit pretty well.

Kingfishers are my favorite dirds.

And this doesn't resemble any partridge I've ever seen:

With or without a pear tree.

I don't know of any blue birds with yellow on their wings.  Maybe it's supposed to be a Red-flanked Bluetail?

The beak is all wrong, though.

People are making up fake birds with stupid AI these days, so it's become even harder to identify species online.

The marine organisms are identified more accurately, except for the fact that there are two lionfish, one that's actually a lionfish and another that's some type of skate or ray:

The numbered doors are arranged in random order on this calendar, each with its own bright color:

There are white silhouettes of the animals overlaying the colored doors, which gives a slightly strange effect.

Door number one is dark blue with a silhouette that I can't identify:

Looks like an ostrich head...or a scorpion tail.

I found a plastic bag inside:

All of the pieces here are light blue, yellow, or white:

In addition to the pieces, there's also a single instruction sheet.  This has step-by-step instructions for building three different animals with the same pieces:

There are pictures of the three animals at the top of the instruction sheet, and these same animals can be found on the back of the box:

I wish all three animal variations were labeled, but only the primary fish (the swordfish) is identified.  There's also a smaller fish and a dird.

The instructions are easy to follow, except for the fact that the pictures are really small.  I think I pulled a muscle in my eye trying to focus on a few of the steps.

Also, this set was missing an important piece.  I only got one of the translucent yellow feet/fins:

This meant that my two fish were without the lower part of their tail fin, and my dird was missing a leg.

Still, the models are very cute!

The swordfish is definitely the best, but the smaller fish is also believable:

And the dird (blue with yellow wings again) is great:

The pieces don't have the precision of Lego, so they can be hard to snap together and sometimes come apart too easily, but the building experience was better than I expected.

I was eager to open door number two!

This set looks mostly pink and white:

Oh!  It's the little cuttlefish!

In addition to the cuttlefish, this set also makes two funny little shrimp-like critters that I can't identify:

I built the cuttlefish first:

She's very two-dimensional, and is propped up like a picture frame with her two back tentacles:

Here's the first shrimp-like creature, who looks a bit like a beetle:

Some of the eyes in these sets can be placed to make the animals look either happy or mad.  I think this guy is angry because I can't identify him:

Some of the animals are so similar to one another that only a few pieces have to be changed to make the transformation.  But the instructions start from scratch each time, which is helpful:

Here's the last little shrimp-like fellow:

He's a happy shrimp.

As you can imagine, this calendar was extremely time consuming to open.  After the first few doors, I took everything upstairs to my more comfortable kitchen table and resumed building.  After over an hour, I enlisted the help of my husband to assemble a few of the animals.  It still probably took more than two hours to finish the entire thing.

And we didn't even build all three animals from each instruction sheet.  We just picked our favorite (which was usually the primary animal) and built that.  I'd say it took 5-10 minutes to build and appreciate each creature, and so exploring all three options could keep a child occupied for the better part of a half hour every day.  That's some good entertainment value!

I won't show you every set individually, but I'll talk about some highlights.  One interesting thing was that not all of the animals fell into the category of dird or marine organism.  There are some mammals, too.

For instance, the pigeon set can also build a deer and a third creature that I think is a fish?

The octopus set can build what looks like a little red pig:

The black swan set also builds a slug and a snake, and the owl set can make a lion or a bear:

I ended up choosing to build the slug, the lion, and a snake:

Overall, my husband and I built twelve marine organisms:

My husband's favorite was the orca, and he made a few modifications so that it was more anatomically accurate:

I really like the lionfish, with his spiky fins:

I also like the grumpy monkfish, with his bright green lure:

Although in reality, monkfish lures are proportionally much smaller than that!

I also like the elegant green seahorse:

We only built nine dirds:

My husband's favorite is this stern-looking flamingo:

The flamingo set could build two other long-legged pink birds, and we're not exactly sure what they are:

I think the bottom one is a less-stern flamingo, and maybe the middle one is a pink stork (wearing a toupée)?  The painted stork, Mycteria leucocephala, has some pink on it:

My husband's least favorite is probably this toucan, mostly because we're not sure why there's a whole extra section to his beak:

Could've left that piece off.

I really like the penguin:

So cute.

The penguin set can also make an owl and a...?

A badger with no nose?

Despite not being very pigeon-like, I think the pigeon is nice, too:

And I like this red "vermilion bird:"

Apparently the vermilion bird is from Chinese mythology and is a symbol for fire.  It resembles a phoenix:

Here are all of the creatures we built:

It's a fun assortment, and would give kids a lot to play with.  I found the building experience to be a bit repetitive after a while, but that's probably because I built everything at once, which was a little tedious. 

Another perk is that while the animals can be played with and enjoyed as they are, they can also be broken down into a bin of pieces for more generic building fun.  I just wouldn't mix these pieces with Lego or any other premium brand of building blocks, since the quality is not equivalent.

But the pieces fit with Lego sets, like my advent calendar Princesses!

My kids would have loved this set when they were younger!

Here are the basics:

Best toy: this is subjective, but I like the vermilion set because all three animals are interesting

Worst toy: the swordfish with a missing piece

Number of good surprises: 23 (missing pieces are no fun)

Number of really good surprises: 23 there was great equality here, so this is hard!

Excitement rating, out of 10: 8

Aesthetic rating, out of 10: 5

Bottom line?  I've had a lot of fun looking at these calendars over the past month.  It's hard to choose favorites, because each calendar brought something different to the table.

For example, the Playmobil and Dirds and Marine Organisms calendars are the ones that I would have been most likely to buy for my kids when they were between six and ten years old.  The Playmobil calendar was super-fun to open, and has a lot of enduring play value.  The Dirds calendar has literally hours of building fun (way more than the Lego Princess set) and is one of the least expensive options.  However, the calendar that I'd be most likely to give as a gift to adults is the 3D printed dragon calendar from Etsy.  I found it to be delightfully unique and full of real surprises.

For doll lovers, the L.O.L. Surprise, Cutie Reveal, and Polly Pocket calendars stand out because they come with dolls that can be played with and incorporated into existing L.O.L., Barbie, or Polly Pocket collections.  I especially liked all of the outfits and accessories that came with the L.O.L. calendar, and had the most fun playing with that doll.  The Cutie Reveal Barbie is pretty, with a great animal costume, although some of the surprises were underwhelming and I wish that the doll's hair fiber was nicer.  The Polly Pocket calendar was the least impressive in this category.  Even though the set came with two micro dolls, both very cute, I found the accessories and the mini dollhouse difficult to play with.

Miniature lovers will appreciate the Mini Brands and Mini Bratz calendars for their highly-detailed offerings.  The Mini Brands calendar delivered more duds than I would have liked, though, and some people took issue with the fact that the Bratz calendar separated the mini dolls from their packaging.  Personally, I preferred the Bratz calendar, and feel like I got a wonderful bargain on a great collection of mini dolls.

The Schleich calendar doesn't really fit into any of the previous categories.  It's nice to look at, but I didn't particularly enjoy the advent calendar experience because of the high concentration of small, underwhelming items.  However, I found it to be a compelling introduction to the Schleich Horse Club line of toys.  I'm sure there will be more Schleich horses in my future.

Despite all of these different categories and assessments, no comparative review series is complete without concrete results, and so here's my final ranking, best to worst, with the Lego Princess calendar out of the running because it was a gift:

1. Playmobil 

2. 3D printed animals 

3. L.O.L. Surprise 

4. Dirds and Marine Organisms 

5. Mini Bratz 

6. Cutie Reveal

7. Schleich

8. Polly Pocket 

9. Mini Brands 

I hope you've enjoyed this series, and I'd love to know your own list of favorites!