Winter is in full swing and the holiday season is transitioning into saying goodbye to 2024. We hope you all had a wonderful time with your loved ones! But should you need some respite from just that, we have you covered: Enjoy a post-holiday treat of LEGO community highlights, found in the mystical lands between daily advent calendar reviews and set announcements!

Here at BrickNerd, we looked at a collaborative Christmas project and a motorized underwater layout, learned about LEGO and Formula One and upgraded our LEGO photography setup. We looked at wacky LEGO packaging, made memories with LEGO poinsettias and published instructions for a LEGO gift box as well as a gift guide for (Non-)LEGO tools. And we crafted custom LEGO fantasy figures, built LEGO ornaments in October (for a good cause) and a T-Gauge LEGO layout. In fact, we’ve published so many interesting articles in December that we’ve included an interactive calendar of them at the bottom of this post so you can make sure you didn’t miss a thing.

But there are many more fascinating stories to be told from within the LEGO community, so here are some of the best LEGO articles and videos that caught our contributors’ attention throughout the month of December. We applaud the effort that went into each of these features, so click on the headlines or photos to head to each story or video. They are well worth your time!

Ben Cossy: The Bohrok - LEGO’s Greatest Invention

Whenever the word ‘Bohrok’ comes up, many will reminisce about their childhood, and a toy that stood out amongst the rest. The Bohrok might just be the coolest thing that the LEGO Group ever made – at least according to Ben Cossy. An ingenious toy design that even made the packaging part of the play – and so much more!

Brick Sculpt: √2 and 45° Every LEGO Builders Worst Enemy - Unlocking The Secrets Of The LEGO Grid.

What might sound like a boring math lecture actually sums up one of the bigger challenges when building custom LEGO creations. The LEGO grid makes it really difficult to build anything in 45 degrees. Brick Sculpt offers a variety of solutions and thoughts on the matter.

Cheesey Studios: Top 10 Pieces of 2024

There’s a lot of Top 10s and “Best X of 2024” lists out there. One of the more interesting ones is Cheesey Studios’ annual list of the best new LEGO pieces. For this year Caleb has selected a good mix of styling elements and good old standards – you might want to make sure to pick these up next time you buy some parts!

Kos Brick: LEGO WW2 Willys Jeep ver.2 (Tutorial)

Our Community highlights wouldn’t really be complete without a tutorial video from Kos Brick. He’s been busy these past couple of weeks – and posted tutorials for everything from more mini vehicles to mini mechs to Among Us characters. This month’s highlight though was this Willys Jeep that delights with nifty techniques and details

LEGO Newsroom: Building Inclusive Play: The LEGO Group Announces New Initiatives to Support Fans and Colleagues with Non-visible Disabilities, Conditions and Sensory Needs

For this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3rd, the LEGO Group announced a series of new initiatives to support and celebrate people with disabilities and needs that aren’t immediately apparent. Partnering with Hidden Disabilities Sunflower the company is creating awareness through LEGO products – be it across a range of LEGO sets, in LEGO brand stores and online.

New Elementary: LEGO parts 77845 & 77850 - Rounded Plates

Last year, the element family of rounded plates received two new additions with their 1x3 and 1x4 variants. High time for New Elementary’s Kev Levell to explore their geometries and potential – click through to find lots of satisfying triangles!

Ruth Amos: I Built a LEGO-Inspired Christmas Tree

Sometimes LEGO sets are a bit too small – especially when one is after a LEGO Christmas tree. Reason enough for Ruth Amos to whip out a 3D printer and upscale her LEGO Christmas tree in time for the holidays. Find out what went into it, what went wrong, and just how much time one needs to spend 3D printing to get a life-size LEGO Christmas tree. Oh, and it lights up, too!

R.R. Slugger: R.R. Slugger's LEGO RoboForce Retrospective Series

As stated in this primer episode, this is what happens when a joke has gone too far: What started as a throwaway shot in a Rock Raiders video has finally turned into a full on retrospective series! The first part is online already and covers 2151, with three more to come in the new year!

Solid Brix Studios: Building Geonosis in LEGO – The FINALE

The words ‘Solid Brix Studios’ and ‘Geonosis’ might ring a bell – it’s not the first time we’ve highlighed David Hall’s endeavours with way too many dark orange LEGO bricks. This one-hour-long video covers it all: The droid factory with movement and lights, the terrain, the many many minifigures, the vehicles and so much more.

StoneWars: Looking Back on 25 Years of LEGO Star Wars – Parts 3 & 4 (translated)

StoneWars has used the 25th anniversary of LEGO Star Wars as an opportunity to travel back in time and look at what started it all. We’ve highlighted the first two articles of this series back in September and now, in time for some holiday reading, StoneWars is finishing their trip down memory lane with another two-parter. The third part focuses on the announcement of the theme at New York Toy Fair 1999 while the fourth part covers the launch of the very first LEGO Star Wars sets.

The Brothers Brick: 2024 TBB Custom LEGO Advent Calendar

In a time where every LEGO blog under the sun posts a daily review of the many LEGO advent calenders of the year, one publication stood out this month: The Brothers Brick was posting daily instructions for a custom LEGO advent calendar designed by TBB Managing Director Kyle Keller. This here is the 24th post where it all comes together in a cozy living room, complete with a Christmas tree, a micro scale LEGO monorail and gifts and stockings and whatever else one might think of!

Tips&Bricks: A Guide to LEGO Chima Part 1

LEGO Chima was one of LEGO’s many big bang play themes. Now, almost 10 years after its final wave, many younger AFOLs remember it fondly, even though it always had to live in Ninjago’s shadow. Tips & Bricks is taking a look back at this animal-centric theme that was one of the first to heavily use the color olive green and offered sets in both the minifigure and Constraction genres.

Tips&Bricks: Our 2024 DEIB Efforts

Tips & Bricks is a long-time champion of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) in the LEGO community. This post highlights their 2024 efforts and some of their best articles from across the year. Well worth a (second) look should you have missed an article!

If all of those amazing features weren’t enough to satisfy your LEGO community craving, here is an interactive calendar of everything that BrickNerd has published this last month to make sure you didn’t miss a single article.

Did we miss any of your favorite LEGO articles and content for the month? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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