If you are one who celebrates Christmas, then Merry Christmas to you! I was at Target on 23 December and walked through the toy area. It was mobbed (as to be expected) and the LEGO aisle looked like a war zone. There were only a handful of sets left and many people were walking around talking about LEGO. I hope you have purchased the LEGO you needed to ahead of time and weren't stuck somewhere like the picked through Target that I was at.
The LEGO Company usually does a lot of promotions around Christmas time and also has some Christmas themed sets. They traditionally have Advent calendars (City, Star Wars, and Friends), some decorations made out of LEGO, and continuations to the LEGO Winter Village theme. LEGO Shop at Home has also had a number of promotions to include free shipping on all orders, double VIP points, and what I'm going to talk about today, the free Christmas promotional sets. I'm not sure when it's started, but LEGO has released 2 sets a year that come free if your purchase more than a certain dollar amount (usually $99). The first is available around October and the next one becomes available around Thanksgiving time.
This year there were 2 sets. The first was set 40138, the Christmas Train. It was available from 13 October to 13 November 2015. The set has 233 pieces. Here are some pictures of the box.
The box just has pictures of the set on the front and back. The front of the box says that it's a 2015 Limited Edition set.
The set contains 4 LEGO parts bags and an instruction booklet. There are no stickers (thankfully) and the bags aren't numbered. With 233 parts, not having numbers isn't an issue as it was easy to find the parts needed to build the set.
Here is the final version of the set. It is simple, yet rather detailed. There is an engine, a car with various Christmas treats (cookies, packages, a candy cane, a lollipop, and a few other goodies), and then a caboose. There is also a sign and tree that can go along the train's route.
Overall, this is a great set. You can't beat the price... free... well you have to buy other stuff, but if you time your purchases knowing that this will be coming, then you're not upset about it. While being small, the set contains a lot of great parts. I enjoy building with the dark green color and the gold colored pieces are good too. Plus as a town and train fan, I've found that I can never have enough landscaping pieces so an extra tree piece is good with me. It also has a number of small pieces that are extra for the set that you can use elsewhere if you plan to keep this train together.
The next set is the Gingerbread House (40139). It has 277 pieces and as mentioned it was available around Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday for purchases of $99 or more.
The Gingerbread House box looks similar to the Train box. Just a simple picture of the set with the 2015 Limited Edition marking on it.
The contents are similar to the train set as well. There are for parts bags, an instruction booklet, and then a 2 x 12 white plate external to the bags.
And here's the final design with front, side, and back pictures. Despite being very small, the designers did a great job putting details in to make it look like a real gingerbread house. Like the train, there are some great pieces in this set. The brick textured pieces included are great and some of the candy colored pieces can also be useful with other builds. Like the train set, there are a number of small pieces leftover for other uses if you want to keep this set together.
Overall, it's another great set. With only 277 pieces, the designers did a good job cramming in detail with a small number of pieces. Like the train, it's a great piece to add to your Winter Village or to have up around your house as a Christmas decoration.
If you want to get one of these, you have to look on the secondary market. I'm not sure what the prices on Amazon.com or EBay are, but Bricklink lists the average selling price for the train as $30.83 and $36.04 for the Gingerbread house. I have one of each available, but I they are currently not for sale on my site yet as I'm focused on minifigures for now.
Let me know what you think of these sets in the comments section.