REVIEW: Advent calendar 16 December 2024

Today, we’ll be two thirds into the advent calendar and I’m starting to run out of guesses of what might come next. My intuition is telling me something Christmas related. Would I be right? Read on to see what we got…

Surprisingly, we got another minifigure today! The colours suggest it is a ghost…

I decided to build in a bag as I had a few spare minutes before heading to work.

So it is a ghost, but which?

When you think about Hogwarts ghosts, you normally think of the four House Ghosts: The Fat Friar for Hufflepuff, Nearly Headless Nick for Gryffindor, The Bloody Baron for Slytherin and The Grey Lady for Ravenclaw.

Till recently, the only house ghost to be available as minifigure was Nearly Headless Nick. But in the 2023 set Hogwarts: Room of Requirement (set 76413) we got the Grey Lady and in the 2024 set Hogwarts Castle: The Great Hall (set 76435), we did get The Fat Friar.

But there are other ghosts, like Professor Binns (History of Magic teacher) and Moaning Myrtle.

The 16 December minifigure doesn’t fit any of them and on Bricklink, she’s listed as the Choir Ghost.

I assume it refers to one of the ghost carollers, that sang Christmas carols at winter at Hogwarts. We see them briefly in the first movie, as Hermione enters the great hall to say goodbye to Harry and Ron, who are in the middle of a game of wizard’s chess.

Just before she enters the hall, however, she passes a trio of ghosts in the Entrance Hall, who are Christmas Carolers. They sing Christmas hymns and are dressed as Dickensian carolers, with top hats and hymn books. I think it may represent the left most character on the image above, but I could be wrong.

But I guess that my intuition that it today was Christmas related wasn’t wrong, it was just a Christmas related minifigure.

Summary

So we didn’t get any extra bricks with the minifigure, but we did get the printed hymn book tile, which however has been used in quite a few sets before. Still, I do like the design with the big dress, the printing and overall to get something special and unexpected, so I’ll give it a high score of 4.5 out of five house points.

With this surprise entry, we now have five minifigures (most advent calendars have six, but some have exceeded that). So I don’t think we’ll get another tomorrow. Actually, I can’t think of anything to get. So I’m looking very much forward to a surprise tomorrow. If you’re wondering too, be sure to check back tomorrow on the 2024 Advent Calendar page to see what we got.

Till then, Build the Magic!