I’m delighted to review the latest addition to the popular Winter Village series. #10339 Santa’s Post Office contains 1440 pieces and is recommended for ages 18+. It will be released on October 1, 2024 and costs $99.99 (99.99€ / £89.99 / 129.99 CAD / 169.99 AUD)

#10339 Santa’s Post Office.

First Impressions

#10339 Santa’s Post Office made me smile at first glance thanks to the playful composition, the heavily-laden snow-covered rooves, and of course the hot-air balloon in the background. The cart full of letters and the signpost make it perfectly clear that this is a post office at the north pole — where all of the letters to Santa from kids around the world arrive!

The set is built across 10 stages corresponding to 10 different numbered bags.

Inside the box, you will find ten numbered bags and two instruction booklets: one large and one small. A small sticker sheet includes just 7 different stickers for this set.

Build Process

The smaller book uses just bags 1 and 2 to create two small vignettes, which I expect will be simple enough for younger kids to build without very much help. The larger book creates the building and hot-air balloon using the eight remaining bags.

Bags 1-2: Mail Sorting Machine, Sign, Tree, and Elves

The first two bags correspond to a much smaller instruction booklet that is similar to what you would find in a 10$ set aimed at ages 8+. This feels about right in terms of complexity as well, with pretty straightforward techniques building the small vignettes in the first bag. There is a small risk of confusion with the colored 1×1 Round Plates (part 6141) attached to the underside of the tree branches, but then again, putting the wrong color in the wrong place has no adverse effect on the finished model.

The first bag includes three small modules.

Bag 2 is all about sorting the mail. We build a small sled to carry mail around in the snow, followed by a mail sorting machine with two sides. As we complete this bag we learn that the mail is sorted into two categories, the red cart containing junk mail, and the green cart for real letters. It’s good to know that even Santa receives junk mail at the north pole.

The mail sorting machine is a delightfully cute play feature.

These two bags really are a good fit to ‘build together’ with younger members of your family – I just wish that the packaging made it more clear that this multi-generational building experience is appropriate for much younger builders. (Showing the recommended age for the smaller vignettes on the box would improve the build-together promise.)

Build Time: 16 minutes (Bag 1: 9 minutes, Bag 2: 7 minutes.)

Bags 3-9: Building

We begin working on the larger building with Bag 3. In this short stage, we build a sturdy base using five 6×8 Plates in Tan with rounded plates in White around the edges to mimic snow. I enjoyed the saplings peeking out of the snow and the piles of snow mounding up around the edges of the foundation.

We build a strong base in Bag 3.

We focus on the right side of the building in Bag 4, which includes a fireplace that is visible from both inside and outside of the building. The small room inside includes a bookshelf, opulent chair, and a table with a printed 1×2 tile that appears to include the list of kids who are naughty or nice.

The interior includes a fancy chair, bookshelf, and table.

Continuing to Bag 5, we have the parts needed to build the left side of the ground floor. The theme of heavy snowfall continues with snow heaping up on the windowsills. The walls use the same color scheme as in the previous bag, with 135Sand Blue walls, 312Medium NougatMedium Dark Flesh corners, and horizontal stripes in 140Earth BlueDark Blue.

Sand Blue is the primary color for the walls. (It is a rare color.)

I enjoyed the sixth bag because we build several green ramps which suggest play features in the bags which will follow. There is a ramp coming down from the snow-covered platform on the left (where the hot-air balloon will land) and another coming down from what will be the third story of the building. I’m eager to see how efficiently the elves are able to sort all of this mail.

I removed part of the roof so you can see the ramps more easily.

We frame out the third floor in Bag 7, which is a small room with a desk and a chute to drop letters down to the lower floors. The Tudor-style roof framing is well done, with an L-shaped module attached using just one stud, followed by two supports beneath it which give it some additional vertical support.

The framing supporting the roof was the highlight of bag 7.

Bag 8 adds a garland between the first and second floor, and a 297Warm GoldPearl Gold horn below the peak of the roof. It looks great and features a festive red bow. After that, we add a snow-covered roof module for the room on the right and left door entrance.

In the ninth bag, we finish assembling the building by adding a complex snowy roof on the top. It is built using SNOT techniques, and includes a nice red flag on top.

The main building is completed in Bag 9.

Build Time: 101 minutes (Bag 3: 9 minutes, Bag 4: 16 minutes, Bag 5: 17 minutes, Bag 6: 17 minutes, Bag 7: 16 minutes, Bag 8: 16 minutes, Bag 9: 10 minutes.)

Bag 10: Hot Air Balloon

The final build is the standalone hot-air balloon. The basket is intricately detailed using round elements to represent the woven wicker basket commonplace in hot-air balloon design. I was excited to see that a light brick is included, which is hidden inside the balloon and directs light down to give the illusion of a flame heating up the air in the ballon.

The balloon is built using part 18969, which I had never used even though it was introduced in 2015.

The balloon itself uses 4×4×13, ⅛-Balloon Panel w/ Clip (part 18969), a purpose-built element that was introduced in 2015 to mimic a balloon shape using 8 curved segments. They attach using a pair of 2×2 Bar Frame, Octagonal (part 75937), one at the top and one at the bottom.

This cute hot-air balloon may give you lofty ideas.

Build Time: 15 minutes.

Assessing Value

LEGO sets are small buildable art works, and it is awfully difficult to measure the value of a piece of art based on the materials it is built with. Thankfully, we do have a couple of objective ways of measuring the underlying value of a LEGO set, especially when compared to other sets.

It is important to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of every LEGO set.

For a long time, fans have used price-per-part as a proxy for value, but sets like #31203 World Map which contain a ton of tiny parts have proven that this isn’t a very useful way to predict value. Nonetheless, at $0.069 per-piece this set outperforms the historical benchmark of 10-cents per piece.

My preferred metric is price-per-gram since it tells you literally how much plastic you are getting in the set. Based on this metric, the set performs a little below average, although this list includes a bunch of sets that were released before The LEGO Group re-calibrated their pricing strategy in 2022.

I also calculated the price-per-minute, which is only a useful metric because I am only comparing my own build times across different sets. With a total build time of 132 minutes, we have a price-per-minute of $0.76 – way better than #71486 Castle Nocturnia or #21344 Orient Express which were both around $1.20 per-minute. The only set that I’ve built which offers a better value in this regard was #21061 Notre Dame at $0.60 per-minute.

Conclusion

While last year’s #10325 Alpine Lodge did not grab my attention based on the box photo alone, the intricate architectural detailing charmed me as I built it. By contrast, this year’s addition to the series caught my attention right away. The snow-laden roof and hot-air balloon create a dynamic composition that instills a strong sense of adventure. It is easy to imagine the elves dropping mail down the chute for Santa to read.

This latest addition to the series fits right in.

The storytelling is even stronger than what you can see on the front of the box thanks to a series of ramps through the building to a sorting machine on the ground floor. There’s a green bin for letters from children, as well as a red bin for junk mail — which is apparently also a problem at the north pole.
With a $99.99 price point, this is an absolute steal on all metrics: price-per-part ($0.069), price-per-gram ($0.105), and even price-per-minute ($0.758).

#10339 Santa’s Post Office – Box and Completed Model.

#10339 Santa’s Post Office rises above recent additions to the series, lifting the LEGO Winter Village to new heights. I am happy to give this set the rare Must Have (5/5 star) rating for the excellent appearance, playful storytelling, and exceptional value.