More than just a festive decoration, 41843 Family Christmas Tree’s storytelling potential is enhanced thanks to its specific minifigure selection.
Included in this year’s line-up of holiday-themed LEGO sets is 41843 Family Christmas Tree, a 3,171-piece build that can be disassembled and reconstructed each year as required. In addition to the main model itself, the LEGO Icons release also includes a specific selection of minifigures, one chosen for its storytelling potential.
The development of 41843 Family Christmas Tree’s cast of characters has been discussed in a new video interview with the design team behind the set, revealing the various thought processes that went into the inclusion of each minifigure.
“One of the things that excited us as designers was that we could play with the set how we wanted,” said Design Manager, Ashwin Visser. “So we knew on the outside it needed to look like a Christmas tree, but once you open it up, you are entering the world of fantasy, elves and Santa.”
“Santa’s elves are very important to Santa’s story,” added Design Manager, Samuel Liltorp Johnson, “so instead of just giving very standard elves that we’ve done before, how do we make it so there are brand new stories to tell?”
That thinking led to the LEGO Icons design team wanting to make 41843 Family Christmas Tree’s elves unique and not just carbon copies of each other or what had come before.
“We kind of imagine all the elves have different divisions they work on,” explained Master Model Maker, John Ho. “We started to put these tree logos on the elves, so they now belong to the Tree division.”
“One figure that is really my favourite is the knight elf,” said Ashwin. “[He} has a green helmet, he has a sword, but his shield is actually unique because it looks like a wrapped present.
“One other favourite I have is the space elf. If you’re a LEGO fan, you know Classic Space is huge within the community. So his sweater is actually an homage to the Classic Space logo, but in our take, it’s not a rocket that is flying around the moon – it’s Santa and his sled.”
The LEGO Icons design team also took inspiration for one of 41843 Family Christmas Tree’s minifigures by glancing outside their office windows and included familiar characters that fans might expect to find in such a festive set.
“In front of our [Billund] headquarters, there is this giant minifigure,” noted Ashwin. “And last season, we were surprised that this minifigure had a Christmas sweater on. On that sweater is our famous Cataclaws, so now you can find the same design in this set on one of our elves.
“One thing that was really certain from the beginning was that we wanted to include Santa Claus as a minifigure and Mrs. Santa. We had a lot of possibilities to now create new stories with the elves."
“We had so many ideas, but so little space to fit it in,” Samuel added. “So we had to prioritise what we thought would be important for the storytelling on the inside. And then we thought, ‘How is Mrs. Claus integrated into the story?’ and we wanted her to be leading the elves. So she’s maybe making the cookies for the kids, but also being part of the break room for elves and in that kind of story.”
LEGO 41843 Family Christmas Tree is available to order right now, priced at £269.99 in the UK, $329.99 in the US and €299.99 In Europe. You can find out much more about the LEGO Icons set in our full festive review of the model right here.
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