Another annual LEGO tradition that I’ve been sucked into… the Winter Village Collection. This one is #10339-1: Santa’s Post Office. It was released on 1 October 2024 and contains 1,440 pieces. It still retails for $99.99 which is great to see that the price has remained the same for Winter Village sets. The price per piece works out to $0.069 which also isn’t that bad.
The front of the box has the labeling for Icons, 18+, and the Winter Village Collection. It also has the warning about the batteries inside that you shouldn’t eat. The back provides some more details and shows off some of the play features.
The set contains 10 parts bags, 2 instruction booklets, and a small sticker sheet. This set can be split out so one person builds with one booklet and another builds with the other. I think a younger builder is meant to build with the smaller booklet while the older builder gets the larger booklet. I built with both of my kids so we took turns building different bags.
Here’s the sticker sheet. Thankfully there aren’t too many, but it could be much worse considering how the price point doesn’t seem to change despite the LEGO set price inflation that we’ve seen over the past few years.
Bags one and two build a number of accessory parts. Bag one is a directional sign next to a mail box, a Christmas tree (yet another Christmas tree design from the LEGO design team), and an elf ice fishing near a small seal. The elf apparently caught a letter? Or is getting rid of the letter? I’m not sure. Bag two is some post office gear with two mail carts, a mail separator, and a sled with another elf. The separator will come into play later on, but the point is that you can sort the junk mail and the good mail. Some of the pieces are labeled junk mail which is a funny touch from the design team.
The minifigures are mostly the same as other elves only these have post office logos on them so they are a bit more unique.
Bags three and four start to build the post office. Bag three assembles the base and starts to give the frame of the building. Like most Winter Village sets, this one is just the front facade and it doesn’t have a back. Bag four assembles Santa’s office area. He has a fire place that also opens up to the outdoors, a chair, book shelf, and a small coffee table.
There isn’t anything new about the Santa minifigure that I can tell, but you get another one in case you didn’t have one.
Bag five adds a center room area for sorting mail and then an entrance area with yet more mail stacked up. There are a few details added outside to include some plants with snow on top and some snow built up on window sills.
Bag six adds on some of the roof area which will make more sense later on in the build. There are a few green chute pieces which will eventually become part of the mail sorting apparatus.
The seventh bag adds more to the front of the building, more roof, and a second story with a desk/working space and another way to drop mail into the sorting system. My kids hadn’t seen any of the reviews prior to building the set so it was fun to listen to them try and figure out what all the different chutes were for.
Bag eight adds the snow covered roof over the entrance to the Post Office along with decorations on the front of the building by the door, windows, and chimney. I really like how they recreated the Post Office symbol in gold colored pieces above the windows.
The ninth bag finishes the building off with a roof over the main section of the Post Office. Not pictured, but underneath the roof is a yellow arrow to show the direction the mail should travel. You also add some red flags to the top of the roof.
Bag ten is the final bag and it assembles the hot air balloon. It’s a cool design with the light brick included here to show the balloon firing up. You push the gray piece on the top to make the light turn on. The balloon has an elf pilot and space to hold mail. The mail holder can tip when it lands on the pad on top of the post office. The mail then enters the sorting chutes. What a great play feature! I’m not sure that you can actually steer a balloon to land where you want it to, but maybe it’s part of Santa’s magic? There is an elf holding light sticks to help direct the balloon in for a perfect landing.
Here’s the final set and all that it includes. My kids and I enjoyed putting it together and it’s fun to play with. The price per piece ratio is decent as well. If you’re into the Winter Village Collection, definitely pick this one up. If you aren’t sure, wait two years until it is about to retire and you might see it get discounted 15% or 20%.
Happy building!