Winter Village Toy Shop

As set that I'm happy to have in my hope, and I look forward to getting out my ‘Holiday' train set from a few years ago and putting it along side. I hope we'll see a few more winter buildings in the years to come though I don't want to wait to long. more less

I am a huge lego fan and all of my kids are also. I purchased this for a 7-yr. old girl with some building experience and she absolutely loved it. She was able to do it all on her own a with few mistakes that we had to help correct - mostly because she used the wrong color of piece where it was difficult to match the instruction colors with the piece colors. There are so many fun details in the set, I've enjoyed checking it all out. After the building fun, it has also been a lot of fun to "play with" as there are lots of little people and pieces that can "interact". I am sure this will be built, rebuilt, used, and enjoyed all year long. This set does contain A LOT of very small pieces - more than most sets we have bought, including Technic or Star Wars sets. This could be a problem for smaller children, but ultimately is what makes all the detail so much fun! more less

As it stands, I quite like the Toy Shop as a set, and I can see it being part of a layout including the Post Office, despite their contrasting styles (i.e. the presence of Dark Green with the Post Office). The minifigures would also fit in a display including the Post Office set, although I'm curious why the instruction manual for the Post Office shows that set being combined with the Winter Village Bakery instead. The Toy Shop itself is a neat building from the exterior, and has a very nice interior on the ground floor. The tree is particularly welcome - whereas we get itty-bitty ones in advent calendars, this tree is a very healthy, minifigure-sized one. more less