Review: #10339 Santa’s Post Office (Winter Village)
Santa returns to the Winter Village series in this absolutely delightful addition to the storied LEGO theme. It is probably ok to have ‘lofty’ ambitions for this one.
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 $99.99 (99.99€ / £89.99 / 129.99 CAD / 169.99 AUD)
First Impressions
#10339 Santa’s Post Office made me smile at first glance thanks to the playful composition, the heavily-laden snow-covered rooves, and of course the hot-air balloon in the background. The cart full of letters and the signpost make it perfectly clear that this is a post office at the north pole — where all of the letters to Santa from kids around the world arrive!
Inside the box, you will find ten numbered bags and two instruction booklets: one large and one small. A small sticker sheet includes just 7 different stickers for this set.
Build Process
The smaller book uses just bags 1 and 2 to create two small vignettes, which I expect will be simple enough for younger kids to build without very much help. The larger book creates the building and hot-air balloon using the eight remaining bags.
Bags 1-2: Mail Sorting Machine, Sign, Tree, and Elves
The first two bags correspond to a much smaller instruction booklet that is similar to what you would find in a 10$ 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
LEGO Set | Price | Part Count | Price-per-part | Weight | Price-per-gram |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
#31203 World Map | $249.99 | 11,695 pieces | $0.021 per-piece | 4020 grams | $0.062 per-gram |
#21056 Taj Mahal | $119.99 | 2022 pieces | $0.059 per-piece | 1811 grams | $0.066 per-gram |
#21058 Great Pyramid of Giza | $129.99 | 1476 pieces | $0.088 per-piece | 1832 grams | $0.071 per-gram |
#10278 Police Station | $199.99 | 2923 pieces | $0.068 per-piece | 2602 grams | $0.077 per-gram |
#71799 Ninjago City Markets | $369.99 | 6163 pieces | $0.06 per-piece | 4770 grams | $0.078 per-gram |
#71741 Ninjago City Gardens | $299.99 | 5685 pieces | $0.052 per-piece | 3719 grams | $0.081 per-gram |
#71043 Hogwarts Castle | $399.99 | 6020 pieces | $0.066 per-piece | 4899 grams | $0.082 per-gram |
#10292 Friends – The Apartments | $149.99 | 2048 pieces | $0.073 per-piece | 1778 grams | $0.084 per-gram |
#10297 Boutique Hotel | $199.99 | 3066 pieces | $0.065 per-piece | 2380 grams | $0.084 per-gram |
#21343 Viking Village | $129.99 | 2103 pieces | $0.062 per-piece | 1448 grams | $0.09 per-gram |
#42639 Andrea’s Modern Mansion | $199.99 | 2275 pieces | $0.088 per-piece | 2116 grams | $0.095 per-gram |
#10312 Jazz Club | $229.99 | 2899 pieces | $0.079 per-piece | 2392 grams | $0.096 per-gram |
#10270 Bookshop | $199.99 | 2504 pieces | $0.080 per-piece | 2085 grams | $0.096 per-gram |
#10339 Santa’s Post Office (this set) | $99.99 | 1440 pieces | $0.069 per-piece | 954 grams | $0.105 per-gram |
#10282 Adidas Originals Superstar | $79.99 | 731 pieces | $0.109 per-piece | 735 grams | $0.109 per-gram |
#10316 Rivendell | $499.99 | 6167 pieces | $0.081 per piece | 4375 grams | $0.114 per-gram |
#10305 Lion Knights’ Castle | $399.99 | 4514 pieces | $0.089 per piece | 3265 grams | $0.122 per-gram |
#10303 Loop Coaster | $399.99 | 3756 pieces | $0.106 per-piece | 3189 grams | $0.125 per-gram |
#21351 The Nightmare Before Christmas | $199.99 | 2193 pieces | $0.091 per-piece | 1514 grams | $0.132 per-gram |
#75290 Mos Eisley Cantina | $399.99 | 3187 pieces | $0.126 per-piece | 2521 grams | $0.158 per-gram |
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.
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 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.
I am very surprised that you can rate this set to 5/5. In my opinion this is one of the weaker Lego Winter Village sets. The balloon is very similar to the ones in basic Lego Friends sets that have been around for ages. The main building looks like very simple, the tall middle part looks like a MOC made by skilled elementary schools kids. Under no circumstance is this an 18+ expert set. Hower I do think that 6-10 year old children will enjoy this very much, and they are probably the target group for this set. As an adult Lego fan I much prefer sets like Santa´s Visit or Alpine Lodge, just to name a couple of the newer ones.
David,
I think that is totally fair feedback, and highlights how deeply subjective set reviews can be. I think for me, this set appealed to the 10-year-old buried inside of my adult body. It’s filled with color and fun, and I enjoyed it more than the other recent additions to the series.
Happy Building!