Set #10267 Gingerbread House: The Winter Village Creator Theme has long fascinated and excited me, unfortunately I always left it aside as an item to buy one day, but not this day. And then this set came out, and I said this looks great. And then my office decided to have a Christmas Decorating Contest, I brought my Christmas LEGO to decorate the desk, but didn’t have anything large enough to truly wow, so I said, it’s time for Winter Village to be picked up. Not officially part of Winter Village since the name of the set doesn’t have Winter Village in the name. That being said, this is a really great set to get to start off a Winter Village display. It’s a very clever and cute build, the design is awesome and this set is definitely more advanced than some of the builds I’ve done in the past.

I’m getting a bit on a tangent though. This set is totally worth the asking price, and I’m going to get into why, but one final thing to note. LEGO’s official description says this set has three Minifigures. That is not true, rather than make a baby Gingerbread Person they just printed a tile with the baby. That doesn’t count as a Minifigure LEGO, no matter what you say.

Packaging

The box for this set is extremely impressive. I’ve said this before of boxes, but nothing truly beats the LEGO Creator Expert line. They know how to sell a set, showing it off brilliantly and including a parts list call out on the top side of the box. The back shows off all of the impressive interior design used for the set.

For the manuals in this set they gave us two, a small manual for the first build in Bag #1 and a much larger manual for Bags 2-5. These are packaged very nicely in a plastic bag and includes a small sticker sheet. There are three stickers in this set for details, honestly I’m not sure why LEGO chose this route for a Creator Expert set. This is my first one, and I just expected that with the name Creator Expert we would get printed elements instead of stickered. I guess this is where the beliefs fall apart.

The manuals are very well done, which is in keeping for a Creator Expert set. I feel like I’m using that a whole lot more than I should be, but it’s fun to say. Creator Expert, Creator Expert… Heh. Ok, manuals and packaging are great, moving on.

Parts

This set is loaded with parts. I mean we’ve got a ton of elements here, white baseplates, loads of 2x2 and 2x4 mason bricks, some great 1x1 sparkly pink and purple bricks which are meant to make gumdrop windows. God this entire set is such an awesome collection of parts. I’ve been missing out not buying Creator sets all these years, sure Super Heroes and Star Wars have interesting and unique sculpted elements, but nothing beats just plain LEGO bricks in multiple colours. I think I’ll be getting less licensed theme sets going forward possibly.

Minifigures

Gingerbread Man: The overall design and parts use here is pretty similar to the CMF release from Series 11, but these Minifigures have a few differences. First of all the legs are not printed, the torsos are shared between the man and woman so they are identical, right down to the red gum drop buttons. The heads are also identical as far as parts use goes, but the prints are different and the internal cream filling is different, the man has a brown filling and dark brown mustache details. Definitely a great looking Minifigure.

Gingerbread Woman: As noted above the two Gingerbread characters are identical, but the girl has unique parts. Her head features pink cream filling instead of her husband’s brown filling, she has rosy cheeks and includes the skirt piece in light brown with a white icing trim printed around it. Definitely a nice use of parts. She carries a baby bottle.

Gingerbread Baby: Not an actual Minifigure, but a printed tile, so not much to say here. It might have been nicer to see the new Baby body made up to look like the Gingerbread adults, but then how to make the baby’s head?

The build

Bag #1: Each build uses two separate number bags for the parts. The first pair of bags are where you make all of the accessories and Minifigures, items such as the Christmas Tree and a bunch of toys and presents for the young Gingerbread Baby are here, it’s an awesome build, but I didn’t start here. I actually started with the build of the actual Gingerbread House first, which is a great thing, most sets you can’t really skip the first bag if you want to make the full model first. With this set you could, and that pleases me.

There’s nothing wrong with the builds here, it’s just if I’m making a building I prefer to start with the foundation and the extra bits can wait until their home or place of work will have somewhere to go once you finish the build. This is a really fun selection of builds in this scale, love that tree. And the little rocking horse is awesome, but as I noted, I want somewhere to put everything before I build this part of the model.

Bag #2: Starting here I cracked open both numbered bags for step two, and at first it was going well enough, but I really messed up. It is very important to pay attention when building a model of this complexity, I had to disassemble the central fireplace section because I missed a 1x4 plate. This type of build is definitely for advanced builders, and even us old timers can mess up pretty badly. Fortunately it wasn’t too difficult to put the plate on, but if you miss a step early on and don’t notice until build six you’re going to be pulling your hair out in frustration.

The build though is super impressive. Loved every moment of it, we’ve got gumdrops, frosting, cookie bits all represented as part of this build and it is gorgeous. I haven’t even finished the build yet as I’m typing this, mostly because I tend to write reviews up as I build for sets of this complexity and time consuming to avoid forgetting my first impressions upon building.

This build took the better part of an hour and a half, maybe two hours, it was that involved. Most of that time is probably eaten up by the search for the right parts. I don’t follow LEGO’s advice, I don’t separate my parts when I first start building, maybe I should get into that habit, but where’s the fun in that? It’s so much more fun to sift through a pile of multiple elements and then you find that one part and you’re just super satisfied. Time to move on. Anyway I’m getting a bit long winded here and we’ve still got three more sections to build and discuss.

Bag #3: Good grief, I must really be unobservant. This build is for 12 and up and I, the AFOL that I am, am having trouble realizing how the model should be built. This portion of the build involves a lot of plates, tiles and bricks to make up the ground floor walls, as well as some of the interior detailing, such as a chair, some stockings to hang by the fireplace and several other interior decorations.

The problem is, if you fail to pay as close attention as you should you might use plates in the wrong place. So my suggestion to you is do not guess at what parts to use, pay strict attention to the parts list for each step and don’t add anything. Otherwise, like me, you’ll have to tear apart half of what you’ve done to find a plate or two that might seem to be missing, but shouldn’t be because you used them in the wrong spot. I love the detail and design of this build so far, but twice now I have made stupid mistakes by not paying enough attention to the build steps. Perhaps I’m just unobservant or perhaps the manual needs better work in indicating what is being done. Some of the steps show the new parts being added highlighted in yellow, but not all of them are used to full enough effect. I don’t know if I’m the only one who winds up having these problems when working with Creator Expert sets, but it’s a failing I’ve found with my first foray into the range. I dread how messed up I’m going to be when I start working on my Modular set.

Bag #4: This portion of the build didn’t trick me at all, I got it built with no issues. Loved it, more gumdrop windows and more icing filled portions of the Gingerbread roof. The second floor is starting too and we’ve added some details, but the end of this build you will have made a toilet and bathtub full of chocolate water. Great build, loads of fun, the chimney is coming along nicely as well, though I am wondering how we’ll be pushing the Light Brick inside to activate it. I have noticed though that, for a 2019 set, the clutch power on some of these parts seems to be fairly weak straight out of the box. I’m wondering if there might be a problem forming here for clutch power or not.

Bag #5: This build was slightly repetitive as you worked mostly on the roof, I enjoyed this part of the build only so much. It was a tad frustrating to get all of the clips and bars and hinge plates to line up properly. But the Candy Cane sign posts were really simple and fun to build in comparison. There isn’t much else to say, you get to build a bed and crib for the family, everything now has candy furniture inside. You know I have to wonder just how many people actually make real Gingerbread houses to eat… it would seem a shame to devour something that requires such hard work. At least we don’t have that problem when building with LEGO bricks. Once everything is lined up and clicked into place properly it looks superb, now we can move to discussing the full model.

The completed model

Once everything is put together the overall look of the model is quite impressive. The Creator Expert sets pride themselves on extensive details, fully decked out models and highly displayable set pieces. Placed next to any number of other Christmas Themed sets of the past this model would shine, quite literally when you press down on the smoke from the chimney.

Everything about this is model is brilliantly executed. You’ll find numerous decorations of obvious tasty designs. The trim and eaves of the home are obviously made from icing, the windows use gum drops which have used some brilliantly designed 1x1 bricks in glittery pink and purple. There are parts of candy canes used for further decoration, cookies are everywhere and two larger candy canes are used for sign posts, one of which says the house resides on Candy Lane.

The bathtub inside is made to resemble marshmallows with chocolate bars for the water effect. Many of the other furniture pieces, the chair, bed and dresser are probably made out of wafer cookies judging by the colour of the elements used in their construction. The baby’s crib might even be made out of marzipan.

A little picnic table sits out front and then there are the additional items. A Christmas tree is very interesting looking and uses a new piece I haven’t seen before to great effect for the star topper. They include colorful gifts, a toy train, a toy truck and a rocking horse. There’s a baby carriage with chocolate bar design and cookie wheels, and the chimney itself.

With so many mason bricks and the general method of construction this thing looks spot-on, the design is brilliant. You can choose to display it openly during the holidays, or have loads of fun just acting out scenes and things. Though I’m not entirely sure if anyone would actually be playing with this set. The only flaw in the design is the necessity to press down to activate the light feature, I know it helps to save on the battery inside the Light Brick, but I can’t help feeling as though this feature misses the point of having a light-up gimmick in a holiday display.

I can’t be pressing down on the smoke in the chimney for hours just lighting up the fireplace. It’s just too impractical. Other than this one issue I can’t find fault with anything in this model. It is a definite five out of five. Solid construction, solid detail, solid design and solid parts use. The one and only issue I have aside from the light-up feature being a tad impractical is the strange clutch power issues with some of the parts in this set, mostly the brown sloped 1x2 bricks used in part of the roof construction.

Overall opinion

I am sold. Bring on the next Creator Expert set to build. I love this set, it is truly impressive in design and build, far more than some sets I have built in the past. I am very excited to see what next year’s Christmas set will be. Perhaps a Gingerbread Toy Shop? They could make quite a number of them now that the Winter Village Theme has received so many sets to populate a proper Winter Village.

All of the intricate details in the set really makes for some very clever touches. I love all of the candy based toy builds and presents are included as details. The tree is really impressive too. Overall I really can’t recommend this set enough, so I’ll just say I’m recommending this set times two. No, that doesn’t mean I want you to buy two of them, that would be crazy. (Unless you really want to.) But I do give this set two thumbs up. Love it, love everything about it, even some of the issues with attaching the roofs to the rest of the building. Highly Recommended.

I was sceptic at first, if the house would satisfy my expectations for the new Wintervillage Set. Okay, I will not implement it in the Wintervillage, but as a standalone, it is quit a nice set. A lot of details and a lot of fun building it. Although there is not so much room inside, there is enough place to play inside and outside.

1400pcs for 90€ is also a valuable price. But I still miss the opportunity to illuminate the house per switch. The light bricks from LEGO are a disappointment, so I have to add functional illumination from other companies.

All in all I do not regret buying the Gingerbread House and my son has a lot of fun playing with it. But for this year I hope, that I can expand my Village further :)

I have always had a soft spot for Christmas decorations and the Winter Village line was an amazing line for that.

Inspired choices, wonderfully executed, really capturing the atmosphere.

With the latest additions, not so much anymore. Where as the train station was somewhat meager, it still had some atmosphere to it. The new Gingerbread House on the other hand follows the line of 10245 Santa's Workshop.

Fantasy inspired sets but somehow no clear fit with the previous entries.
I bought the house since the completionist urge kicked in. While building I was however again convinced of the different way these sets are turning.

The set relies heavily on greebling, which sadly more and more sets these days do.
Besides that, the construction is also rather flimsy in the roof parts. The fit is clumpsy and not very sturdy. And counting a printed tile as a minifig is really a case of hubris.

I understand that Lego wants to evolve within a theme but it still has to keep linked to the theme in my opinion. Turning it into fantasy is creating another line. And with the poor and greebly build, this must be the least interesting entry in the Winter Village line thus far.