The 2023 LEGO Employee Christmas gift is a Dots-inspired Gingerbread House Advent Calendar!

November 27, 2023 | 5

I can finally share the 2023 LEGO Employee Christmas gift set – 4002023 Gingerbread House! It’s a really cool and suitably festive build that let’s you build a Gingerbread House Advent Calendar.

There are 24 windows and mini builds to help you count down the days till Christmas. Plus, you can also personalise and decorate the Gingerbread House ala LEGO Dots!

For those that are unaware, LEGO creates a special set each year that’s meant to be an Employee-exclusive Christmas gift, that gets distributed to all employees of The LEGO Group close to December.

If you want one, these will usually pop up all over eBay and Bricklink, and I think this one will not be too expensive on the secondary market, because there isn’t an IP license or interesting/rare characters hidden in this set. The LEGO Group also has over 23,000 employees worldwide, so these won’t be super rare!

As a member of the LEGO Ambassador Network, we are privileged to also receive these Employee Gifts and it’s something I look forward to each year. Check out my review of the 2022 LEGO Employee Gift – 4002022 10 Years of Friendship!

If you’d like to see what’s in each of the windows, I’ll be sharing the daily builds on my Instagram from 1 December. Not too worry, the annual Jay’s Brick Blog Advent Calendar Countdown will also be running from 1st of December on the blog as well – I just wasn’t expecting another Advent Calendar to do, but here we are!

I won’t be building this just yet (I’m busy working on some 2024 reviews!), but I’d love to give you a closer look at the beautiful packaging design and contents!

Here’s a look at the box packaging again which features the Gingerbread House model, set against a dark green background, and design motifs which are heavily inspired by the now-retired LEGO Dots, which ended in June this year. I see this as one final hurrah and farewell to LEGO Dots, which is quite poignant for fans of the artistic theme.

I love the snow-covered roofs of the Gingerbread Houses and each of them having unique patterns that you can of course personalise and customise.

Here’s a look at the back of the box, which also gives you a better look at the back of the Gingerbread Houses, which feature 24 little windows that you can open to discover gifts every day in the leadup to Christmas.

There’s a little blurb on the back as well talking about the ability of this set to evolve and change year to year as an Advent Calendar, and a call to start a new festive LEGO tradition.

A brick-built LEGO Advent Calendar has always been a dream of mine, and I think this will serve as a great template for others to be inspired by to create their own.

Here’s the side of the box, which includes a callout for a Build Together mode. There are multiple instruction manuals, which means this set is perfect for LEGO Employees to share the build with their partners, friends or family.

On the bottom of the box is also a cool little feature – the model can fit in the flip top lid box for easy storage!

Great to ensure that any errant kids don’t accidentally knock over and smash the Gingerbread House Advent Calendar into smithereens.

Here’s a look at the insides and contents – there’s a large card with more instructions on the purpose of the card.

And here’s a look at the sticker sheet, which has the 24 stickers for each window, and a couple of other fun illustrations to decorate the doors and builds.

The Graphic Designers definitely knocked this one out of the park and I love how whimsical, fun and festive this looks – which is quite a hard balance to strike without it looking too derivative for a Christmas-themed design!

And lastly here are the instruction manuals. There are 4 instruction booklets, numbered for each individual Gingerbread House. As mentioned, this allows you to split the build up with up to 3 other people.

The 5th instruction booklet contains the daily builds and as you flip open the first page, you’re greeted by this very clear warning to not peek before the 1st of December!

I’m a big fan of doing Advent Calendars the right away, and absolutely hate spoilers, so I’m going to enjoy the builds day by day and revel in the surprises, so that’s all I’m going to share for now.

I’m sure that there are other people on the internet who will fully review and spoil the contents of the set, but out of respect for all the LEGO Employees and the team that worked hard on this Gingerbread House Advent Calendar, I won’t go beyond this page!

If you want to live vicariously and see what’s inside, be sure to follow my Instagram and I’ll post the Daily Builds, with a one day delay!

A huge thank you to the LEGO Ambassador Network for sending this gift over. The Christmas set is one of the most treasured parts of my collection.

I can’t wait to start on this on the 1st of December, where I’ll also be kicking off the annual Jay’s Brick Blog Advent Calendar Countdown!

To get the latest LEGO news and LEGO Reviews straight in your inbox, subscribe via email, or you can also follow on Google News, or socials on Facebook, Instagram (@jayong28), Twitter or subscribe to the Jay’s Brick Blog Youtube channel.