Culture on My Mind
The 2025 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar
January 12, 2026
My family has been doing the LEGO advent calendars since 2015 and I chronicle the daily builds on Instagram. Each of the annual box sets has been spotlighted on this site. This year, we continued our tradition of building the Star Wars calendars. The joy of this calendar is seeing how LEGO interprets ships and locales from the nearly 60 years of adventures in the galaxy far, far away.
The box contained 24 windows with a single LEGO build in each. This year, the designers changed their approach by making the entire box themed around droids. It was an intriguing idea but came with some significant drawbacks.
Days 1 through 8
The calendar started strong with a minifig from The Rise of Skywalker in Babu Frik. The next two days also made sense with a workbench (that included a clear pedestal for Frik to sit on) and C-3PO (from the moment in Rise when he was reprogrammed to speak Sith). I think the calendar stumbled a bit here with a pit droid that should have been later in the lineup and a chair that has little value in a droid-centered box. The maintenance droid (modeled after the typical GNK gonk droid), R7-A7, and the buzz droid were great thematic choices.
Days 9 through 16
I can’t fault the calendar for including a tool rack as it calls back to the traditional weapons rack filler build of years past. The festive Jawa and BD-72 were great minifig additions, and the B2EMO and treadwell builds were wonderful as well. This block stumbled with the spare parts container, which again is challenging for kids and play factor.
I’m on the fence about the Jawa service vehicle and the crane. These two days referenced an obscure part of two previous LEGO sets: 75059 (Sandcrawler) and 75198 (Tatooine Battle Pack). While they are on theme, this combination is pretty much an exclusive callback for collectors. It maintains some playability, however, by making the vehicle first and then the crane for lifting an astromech by its dome. (I also had no idea what it was until I opened up Jay’s Brick Blog.)
Day 17 through 24
The builds were a lot better in the last third, including the traditional battle droid, another super battle droid minifig, and nice builds for three other droids. The parts bin and the barrel were necessities to fill out the Babu Frik workshop, but I can only imagine the disappointment for kids when they crack open a barrel and shovel on the penultimate day. Traditionally, these calendars save a multipart build for the last two or three days to build up the anticipation. This year… barrel.
I did enjoy the final build for the BB-8 snowman, but the tree was lackluster.
Final Thoughts
This calendar was a step back from the usual and missed some potential in a universe chock full of droids. I wish the development team had considered a droideka (destroyer droid) build or something similar from The Clone Wars. One of the most famous droids is the interrogation droid from A New Hope. Deeper in the lore is the TX-20 tactical droid from the 2011 Mace Windu Starfighter set. Even a simple repaint of a battle droid as one of R2-D2’s droid squad from the Clone Wars Citadel trilogy would be a nice change of pace.
Looking ahead to 2026, we have The Mandalorian and Grogu coming to theaters in May. While that may be too soon to include new minfigs, some miniature builds from the movie would be a nice addition. It’s also the tenth anniversary of Rogue One, so maybe they could include something to honor the film and its characters? Personally, I’m all for Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus.
2026 is also the tenth anniversary of “Twilight of the Apprentice” from Star Wars: Rebels, and I’m always down for more Ahsoka Tano merchandising. I’ve been wanting a minifig with her in a holiday sweater for a while.
Dialing even further back, Shadows of the Empire was the hit release of 1996. Some mini builds of the Outrider or other elements could be fun. One decade earlier, the Droids comic series started in 1986. The Droids and Ewoks cartoon shows were also running at the time, and the Star Tours promotional campaign was in full swing. A StarSpeeder craft build or an R-3X build could be fun nods to the era.
Finally, 2026 is the tenth anniversary of Carrie Fisher’s passing. A tribute might be fitting. Maybe Boussh to tie in Shadows of the Empire?
As I said last year, if you’re looking for a fun interactive gift leading up to the holiday season, I wholeheartedly recommend the LEGO Star Wars advent calendar. Even at its weakest, we have a blast each year and people love following along with us on Facebook and Instagram.
They tend to hit store shelves around Labor Day or shortly thereafter. LEGO’s suggested retail price is $45 USD. Some of the big box store knock that down a little, but I have found the best deal at Costco near the end of September or into October.
If you want to follow along next year, I look forward to it.
Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.
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