2021 LEGO City Advent Calendar: Days 7 - 12 - REVIEW

So, I had plans of keeping up with the LEGO City Advent Calendar reviews as the days progressed but here we are in a post-Christmas world and I'm only now getting around to reviewing days 7 - 12 from this year's calendar.

Oh well, better late than never, right?!

Note:  If you missed the first six days' worth of reviews, you can find my thoughts here.

Day 7:  Betty (criminal)

Our second minifigure of the calendar is another nice one, though once again I'm still confused how LEGO City can have so many criminals given the overabundance of police sets every year!  

I'm even more confused as to why both Betty (the criminal) and Sam Grizzled (the police officer) are essentially paired as hockey players in the set. 

Day 8:  Christmas tree

I think there's been a Christmas tree in every single LEGO City Advent Calendar that I've built - and more impressively, I believe that each tree has been assembled completely differently.  This particular tree appears to be an outdoor tree with snow-laden branches.  The yellow gem at the top works fine for a tree topper but it also acts as a second colored jewel for Betty the thief to nab!  

Day 9:  Monster Truck

This particular build was my son's favorite out of the six builds I'm reviewing today.  He was rather dismayed at the vehicles from the first six days because none of them had actual wheels.  Luckily for my son (and me), the Monster Truck had proper wheels that spin...and thus, the truck can be driven all over the place!  The Monster Truck itself appears to be based on one of the vehicles in the LEGO 60295:  Stunt Show Arena set.

Coincidentally, that Stunt Show Arena set was the big LEGO set that I happened to purchase for my son for Christmas this year!

Day 10:  Hospital

Our next building of the calendar happens to be a type of building that I think LEGO doesn't release enough of in the actual City line - a hospital!  Interestingly enough, a LEGO hospital was the first major custom building that I built for my own personal LEGO City set-up (way back in 2016)!  Kind of neat that my custom hospital and this micro hospital build both share a number of characteristics.  

Also worth noting that the hospital pairs nicely with the ambulance that we got back on Day 4.  I would have thought that the ambulance and hospital builds would have come back-to-back but instead we had to wait almost a week to pair up the two.  

Day 11:  Fire (?) helicopter

Alright, this one is a bit of a guess but I think this is supposed to be a fire helicopter complete with water shooting jets in the front.  It's a perfectly fine little build but it was a bit awkward coming on the heels of the hospital build because my natural inclination was to assume it was some sort of rescue helicopter but I don't think that's what it is supposed to be.  Either way, this is definitely not the worst build of the six days...that dubious distinction goes to day 12.

Day 12:  Snowman

Oh god, my eyes.  What is this abomination?  Even the abominable snowman would have ran from this hideous thing.  Where to even begin?!  I guess I have to start with the hair.  Why?  Just, why?!  Who puts a wig on a snowman?  The arms are also horrible - black arms (at the least they should have been brown to mimic sticks) but then to have them attached via brown connection points...makes the choice of black stick out even more.  About the only thing I like about this build is the lime green scarf...but it doesn't save what's undoubtedly the worst build of the first 12 days of this year's Advent Calendar.

To get the stink of Day 12 out of our system, let's set up the first twelve days' worth of builds on the included playmat with the calendar:

My son loves the roads and driving the little vehicles around (especially the Monster Truck since it has actual wheels).  He's still hoping for a train since there's that not-so-inconspicuous train track running around a good portion of the playmat.

Hopefully, I'll get around to posting the next six days before too long!