Star Wars Droid Factory Advent Calendar

For the second year in a row I was a very lucky boy and had a Star Wars Droid Factory advent calendar. The basic premise is every day you get pieces to build a festive-themed droid and you end up with a collection of droids by the time Christmas comes.

The advent calendar is designed to look like a sandcrawler - the iconic vehicle full of salvaged (ie stolen) droids in Star Wars: A New Hope.

The first piece out was a leg for an R2 unit, sporting a gingerbread-themed paint finish.

The complete R2 unit has already featured on my blog, but here he is again. He is carrying a tray of drinks like R2-D2 does on Jabba's sail barge in Return of the Jedi. 

I hope he's mixing egg nog, but surely in the Star Wars galaxy they would use blue milk so the nog is the wrong colour.

Gingerbread R2 was soon joined by a mate - a snowman version of BB-8 from The Force Awakens. 

I was highly amused one day to just get a pair of feet.

The feet belonged to a Gonk Droid, who was both wrapped up as a gift and sported a Santa hat.

Now, that's a possible Star Wars Christmas song. "Santa Gonky, slip a laser under the tree, for me, I've been an awful good droid, so hurry to the crawler tonight!"

Well, maybe not. 

I don't know the identity of this droid. It's large and stripey like a candy cane.

However, I did recognise the holidayfied version of B2EMO, who first appeared in the series Andor.

I'm not sure if he be too emo, but he does seem to have a fringe.

One day there was a complete droid - D-0 from one of the newer Disney-era films. If you didn't know it's name, don't feel bad. I had to look it up too.

I think they missed a trick with this. Painted brown with a red nose it would make a cute little Rudolph.

The final droid was a mystery. Literally. This is what was printed on the back of the calendar.

Well, I say a mystery but the little wheel on the middle leg and arms coming out of the head gave it away. I guessed it would be Chopper from Star Wars Rebels.

And it was!

The wreath doesn't sit easily and it interferes with the droid's little arms. But eventually I got it to pose for a photo. I think it's meant to be decorated as a penguin. I'm not certain though.

I added the droids from last year's advent calendar to the display as well. The final line up of 13 droids looks great.

Comparing this year to last year, there is more variety. The selection peaked with the first droid, gingerbread R2, but this year's Gonk droid had a much better pattern (and a Santa hat!) It was also cool to get BB-8 after getting his nemesis droid (BB-9E) last year.

I really enjoyed building these droids from the Droid Factory and with any luck a new sandcrawler will wend its way from the depths of the deserts of Tatooine in time for Christmas next year.