Set #40337 Microscale Gingerbread House: This year’s Christmas GWP sets were two extremely impressive models. This set features a sticker, oddly enough, and also is a Creator Microscale set based on this year’s Creator Expert Winter Village style set. The larger Gingerbread House has a lot of impressive details, and this set actually does a lot of nice tricks to match the appearance of the larger model. What else is there to say, review’s over… heh, heh, just kidding.

Packaging

Being a Holiday based set the packaging is a dark blue Creator design with the Limited Edition ribbon in the corner showcasing a snowflake. This is a solid design and one of a handful of boxes I keep in my LEGO collection after opening them. The set sits on the front in a wonderful snowy landscape and just has a very soothing nostalgic design.

The manual for this set is split between two numbered units. There are no cross-promotional images in most Creator manuals for this sub-theme. The parts list is also often found on the back cover of one of the manuals, at least partially. Overall a solid design.

Parts

This set includes 499 pieces, many of which are small 1x1 studs/tiles/bricks, a few of the mason bricks are included, but for the most part you’ll find a load of small parts. Which may or may not be what you’re looking for in a parts pack. I honestly couldn’t say. I didn’t count the extra number of parts for this set, but I’d wager with them we’d probably see a little over 500… unless LEGO counts those parts in the official piece counts, which I highly doubt.

The build

I built this model at work for an office holiday decorating contest. And so I may not recall every aspect of the build, that being said…

Bag #1: The base of the model is built here, it is a miniaturized version of the larger model and as such uses far fewer pieces. But it does a very faithful job of recreating the model as all of the details are here. This build was highly satisfying and I believe I finished it during a fifteen minute break so it didn’t take too long. The large tile involves placing a sticker on it, which is extremely unfortunate. LEGO could have just made a printed element for that if they wanted to, but I suppose they wanted to give us the option of using it or not.

Bag #2: Most of the first floor was built previously, but adding further elements during this build will finish off the front and back of the model. This model is fully enclosed, unlike the larger model, so you won’t be building any interior detailing. This portion of the build was slightly repetitive when I started building the arches of the entranceway. But it was still enjoyable.

Bag #3: The final portion of the build involves similar steps from the previous build to make the top of the house, in fact there is a lot of repetition in this build, but the good kind of repetition. Because the experience is just all around impressive, building at this scale is always a treat. Just a shame I don’t build with it too often. The build of this set is just great fun.

The completed model

Looking at the Microscale model next to the larger model you can really see the inspiration. And this set is ultimately quite inspired. Everything is recreated at least as far as the external build of the house is concerned. There is no interior decorations, a more enclosed back wall is visible instead using a lot of brown elements to represent chocolate. All of the gumdrop windows are recreated faithfully, but are just using ordinary clear 1x1 bricks instead of the sparkly ones found in the larger set. And the Candy Cane signs are missing, I suppose it would be impractical to make them at this scale. It’s a cute and charming model and very fun.

Overall opinion

When it comes to free items this is a really great Gift with Purchase. And so easy to get as well, especially at this time of year. I put in three orders, two online and one in person, I now have three of this great little model. I was thinking of giving one to my brother who might enjoy it, as far as the other duplicate is concerned, I don’t know yet, but I’m sure I can figure out what else to do with this awesome set. I’d definitely recommend getting at least one, maybe more if you really enjoy the model and want a large selection and can afford it. Interesting to note, this isn’t the first time they have made a Gingerbread House, I seem to recall one from 2016 or 2017. Highly Recommended.