With 10308 – Holiday Main Street set to sell out and retire this year (2024), I’ve decided to finally pick this set up and give it a review! Should you buy 2022’s Winter Village set? Here’s why I think you should.
| Set No. | Name | Theme | Released Date | Retired Date | Pieces | Minifigs | Retail (£) | PPP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10308 | Holiday Main Street | Icons (Winter Village) | Oct-2022 | End-2024 | 1,514 | 6 | £89.99 $99.99 €99,99 | £0.06 |
(The set at a glance)
What are Winter Village sets?
Every year since 2009 Lego has released a winter / holiday themed set. These were first released under the ‘Advanced Models’ theme, however, with the retiring of this theme, Winter Village sets now sit under the ‘Icons’ theme. The sets typically feature snowy buildings, Santa, Minifigures in warm outfits, a Christmas tree (you get the picture)
Winter Village sets are designed to be great entry points into Lego and often have a competitive price-tag to boot! For example, the price has stayed at £89.99 since 2021!
My personal ‘arm-chair’ theory is that in 2018 Lego decided to ‘fix’ the price of their Winter Village sets. Before this point the sets were increasing in price yearly like most of Lego’s offering. Personally I think this is a great idea. It provides collectors (like me) with a great value set, and also serves as a seasonal entry point for new fans.
With this context how does 10308 – Holiday Main Street stack up? I think this set not only presents a great entry point to the Winter village sub-theme; but is also a great stand-alone seasonal set.
The set comes with four instruction booklets each with their own numbered bags to build. I have to say, I’m a fan of this approach. This encourages collaborative building and makes it easy for multiple people to build the set at once. Each of the four sections takes roughly the same amount of time to build and everyone gets to build at least one Minifigure.
Speaking of Minifigure – this set comes with 6 unique figs! One tram driver, three shoppers, and two shop keepers. I think these Minifigures are great and I especially love that the little kid has a printed letter piece.
The set includes printed parts and a sticker sheet. I think the inclusion of stickers in an £89.99 set isn’t too egregious, however, the stickers are in quite prominent positions (See the shop signs, Tram adverts). This could be annoying for those who find placing stickers difficult as you could easily mess up your build with one bad sticker placement.
I find if you use Lego’s brick separator tool to apply stickers it’s easier than trying to use fingers. ( Here’s a good video showing this technique )
I built the above sections first. I enjoyed building the street section (I think that’s what it is?), but found the Christmas tree a little repetitive. The post box is a thoughtful addition. It reminds me of the red post-boxes we have in the UK but with a German style horn logo on the side.
After that I built the Tram and the driver Minifigure. This was quite a fun build and incorporated lots of interesting building techniques.
Looking at the back of the box, we can see that the Tram build is compatible with Lego’s train system. These elements are sold separately but the instructions show how to incorporate them. This is a nice touch and definitely a selling point for Train / Lego PoweredUP fans!
The next build was H. Jollie’s Music Store! Now we’re into the big builds of this set. I thoroughly enjoyed building the music store. The interior builds were super interesting and offset the slightly repetitive task of building the exterior.
The sloped roof is a great touch and the white tiles make a really realistic snow effect. The build is full of really simple yet effective techniques – like the drain pipe made from interconnected cylinders.
I’m impressed with just how much detail the designers managed to fit in the store. 5 different musical instruments, including a drum-kit!
The cash register is also a great little build – very recognisable.
Above the music shop is a cosy little kitchen / living room build. The room features some shelves and a table laden with cups and cookies.
There’s also a simple yet effective candle that fills up some of the room’s middle space.
Hanging on the wall upstairs is a brown tile with sticker number 3. I think this sticker is a reference to 2019’s 10267 LEGO Gingerbread House!
I love when Lego hides little Easter eggs and secrets in their sets.
Last but not least is the final build – the toy store. This build completes 10308 Holiday Main Street. This build also features one Minifigure.
Like the Music shop, the toy shop is split into downstairs and upstairs.
The bottom section of the build comes replete with toys, including a bunny, train, and robot. The robot reminds me of Lego’s Mindstorm robot.
The downstairs build also features a register and a printed green money tile.
The top section of the build is a cosy bedroom, complete with a bed, rug, and bed-side table.
There’s also a mini Christmas tree, which given the small space, works well.
Overall the complete set comes together to be greater than the sum of its parts. Each build is unique and fun but still fits thematically in the ‘Winter Village’ universe. The set displays well, although it does have a clear seasonal theme. However, without the white tiles, Holiday Main Street would fit in any larger City collection.
For me, 10308 – Holiday Main Street is the epitome of a Lego Winter Village set. Great value and seasonal fun! Grab this set quickly before it sells out everywhere.
Overall Score:
Price:
Display:
Play Features:
