Best Christmas LEGO sets for the festive season!

Published: 3 years ago

Last Updated: 7 months ago

We’ve run our rule over the Best Christmas LEGO sets for the festive season which is soon to be upon us. We’ve looked both at a couple of sets within the Seasonal theme and Christmas sub-theme and also a couple of other sets which we think are “Christmassy”.

Christmas sub-theme

We’ve picked a couple of sets to look at and also taken a look at how previously retired sets in the sub-theme have performed.

40573 LEGO Christmas Tree

This is the 5^th Christmas Tree LEGO have released over the years and a clever 2 in 1 design. You can either build it as one tree that stands 30cm tall or as two trees which stand 23cm and 16cm tall. Currently available for £39.99 at LEGO.

The very interesting set from the previous versions was set 40338, which was a seasonal promotion set in 2019, available for only 3 days. A free gift when spending £100, it is already valued at over £60 on the secondary market, albeit rarity is the most likely driver for that price!

 

40499 LEGO Santa’s Sleigh

What more could a kid (however old) want for Christmas but a visit from Santa on his Sleigh. The set includes a Santa minifigure as well as 4 reindeer. Currently available at LEGO for £39.99. 

This is the second iteration of Santa’s Sleigh from LEGO, the first was set 40059 which was on sale for just 2 months in 2013. That set has increased in price by just over 150% since its retirement 9 years ago (equivalent to annualised growth of 11%).

 

Sub-theme Analysis

There have been nearly 100 sets produced in the Christmas sub-theme since it was first launched in 1999 with a handful of new sets launched each year, usually with a shelf life of 2 or 3 years currently. Historically the sets were very small with a price point under £10 for the vast majority (and several promotional sets, which have been some of the best performing sets in value terms).

Below are a few of the more expensive sets where we can see quite mixed performance which are consistent with the wider sub-theme in the main.

Conclusion:

Whilst these are both excellent sets, we feel they fall more into the group of sets that we would rather build than buy for investment purposes. The historically retired sets within the sub-theme just don’t support buying as an investment currently and we think there are better investment options (see below).

Other Christmas Sets

We have picked a couple of other sets outside the Christmas sub-theme to look at as well:

10308 LEGO Holiday Main Street

The first is from the Winter Villages sub-theme within the Icons theme and currently available at LEGO for £89.99

For more information and financials on this sub-theme take a look at our recent review of 10293 Santa’s Visit here (Another great Christmassy set that is currently available!) which shows historic annualised growth for the sub-theme of just over 15%, underpinning these sets as decent investment potential and one we would happily add both of these sets to our collection.

 

21330 LEGO Home Alone

First things first, Home Alone IS a Christmas Move, and that makes this a Christmas set, no arguments!!!

Sitting within the Icons theme is this stunning version of the McAllister’s House from the Home Alone film. At nearly 4,000 pieces and with 5 minifigures this is a large set with a high level of detail including walls and roofs which open up to access the inside. Currently available (albeit listed as hard to find) at LEGO for £259.99.

The Icons theme are very varied and hard to analyse values from, however we can look a little closer at the sets which have a TV or film background where we see decent underlying growth for the majority of historic retired sets. Our only small concern would be the high price point relative to a lot of the retired sets and whether future may be a little sluggish relatively.

Read our separate article on Advent Calendars here.

Read our separate article on Santa's Visit here.

 

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