The holiday season is upon us, and if you’re shopping for the LEGO devotee in your life, IGN has you covered. I compiled a list of the best LEGO gifts and broke it into subcategories by theme. From a retro camera that doubles as a toy, to decorative plants and flowers; from Harry Potter castles to Super Mario characters, this gift guide is stacked.
Save for a handful of notable exceptions, we stayed away from massive sets with intimidating prices. I already cover those, and those are the sorts of gifts one buys for themselves. Few would risk purchasing something that expensive for someone else, without an iron-clad guarantee that the recipient will enjoy it. Instead, these LEGO sets combine fun with mid-priced accessibility. They’re all excellent stocking stuffers or main gifts for adults and kids alike. If you want to be the best gift giver this holiday season, read on for all the top LEGO gift options.
LEGO Gifts Under $50
First up, here are a handful of sets for $50 or under. LEGO gets press for its multi-thousand-piece behemoths, but hundreds of sets are available at a more accessible price range. The Retro Camera, for example, is a 3-in-1 build for $20, meaning you can disassemble it and rebuild it as either a television or a video camera to maximize play time. These sets look expensive without being so. Win-win.
LEGO Flower and Plant Gifts
One of the newer themes, the Botanical Collection promotes LEGO as a lifestyle, with LEGO sets aimed at adults. These sets are not expensive collectibles, placed on a high shelf to be admired behind figurative glass. Instead, the LEGO flowers are best placed in a vase or arranged on a window sill or table, as LEGO Flowers and Plants are almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
Personally, I recommend the Poinsettia, which keeps with the Christmas holiday theme. But all these sets are beautiful, wonderful additions to your home decor.
LEGO Star Wars Gifts
LEGO Star Wars had a relatively quiet year, but there’s always the annual Advent Calendar, containing miniature ship builds and holiday-themed minifigures such as Princess Leia in a Christmas sweater. Star Wars sets are notoriously expensive but well-designed; you get what you pay for. And the Millenium Falcon (75257) deserves special mention in this regard. LEGO sells numerous Millenium Falcons, but the mid priced option is my personal favorite. Unlike the $850 definitive version, you can hold this model and “fly” it, and it has more than enough detail and Easter eggs for the average fan.
LEGO Disney Gifts
This year’s Advent Calendar is Princess-centric, and includes Ariel, Moana, Elsa, Tiana, and Mirabel alongside their corresponding houses and accessories. As for other potential LEGO Disney gifts, there’s few that lie in the mid price range – they’re either very modest or very extravagant (like the Snow White Cottage (43242) or The Nightmare Before Christmas (21351). One exception, however, is the Stitch build, a generously sized model that wears a Hawaiian shirt and clutches an ice cream cone in its right paw.
LEGO Marvel Gifts
Marvel had a quiet year, and LEGO focused the majority of its sets around past glories from Phases 1-3 of the MCU. The Advent Calendar features Spider-Man and the Spider-verse, and it includes minifigures for Peter, Miles, Gwen, and Venom. As for the other, non-holiday-themed sets, I recommend Dancing Groot and the X-Mansion, which I recently reviewed. You might also consider gifting a New Captain America set, which features Sam Wilson wearing the stars and stripes.
LEGO Harry Potter Gifts
This was a big year for LEGO Harry Potter, which began rolling out a brand new modular castle. This set currently consists of The Great Hall, the Boat House, the Owlery, and Potions Class. If your gift recipient wants something a little more complete, you can check out the Hogwarts Castle and Grounds (761419), a miniature replica that fits on a single stand. The Advent Calendar pays tribute to each of the four houses and includes a cool-looking Choir Ghost with a massive bustle dress.
LEGO Lord of the Rings Gifts
There are three Lord of the Rings themed LEGO sets available for purchase. The first are Brickheadz depictions of Gandalf and the Balrog. The remaining two – Rivendell (10316) and Barad-dûr (10333) – are massive and expensive, but they’re some of the best design work that LEGO has done in the past five years. If you have the budget, your loved one will have a very Merry Christmas.
LEGO Nintendo Gifts
Nintendo broadened their buy options this year, hitting that perfect sweet spot between adult sophistication and childish whimsy. I’d recommend the Piranha Plant (71426), an adorable maneater with a low price point. Or, if you’re feeling extravagant, you might want to spring for the Mighty Bowser (71411), my favorite build of 2022. An adult might appreciate Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi (71438), an animated tribute to a 16-bit classic, or Sonic the Hedgehog: Green Hill Zone (21331), which pays homage to Sega’s breakout star.
Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He’s also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.
