Review: LEGO Buddy the Elf Christmas set

LEGO Buddy the Elf 40865 New Release Review Brick Banter - 2026 September

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to be building LEGO around this time of year!

The movie Elf has been a Christmas staple for a lot of families since it’s release back in 2003. With many folks around my age looking to it for a fun yearly watch, it was only so long until LEGO began to branch their Christmas range towards it. Now we have LEGO Buddy the Elf, a wild card in my 2026 Bingo card. But alas, he is here. So what do I think of this set? Is it worth buying for Christmas this year? Read on.

Buddy the Elf

The LEGO Buddy the Elf set focuses around a brick built Elf standing on a piece of ice in the North Pole. With a simple base, we get foundation for the four candy cane elements, Buddy himself, Artic Puffin and Maple Syrup.

Without focusing on Buddy too much here first, the base is built sideways instead of a direct upwards build, allowing the snow effect to look clean.

With simple technic bricks and some quick SNOT techniques, all of these hold true as a nice simple base. There isn’t anything outstanding here, but it’s a base.

We also get a small side build of a frankly off character – Artic Puffin. Appearing very briefly in the film as more of a joke than anything else, it is probably one of the only things that grounds this set to a movie. The reality is that the model doesn’t look like an Elf model for the most part – just a generic Christmas Elf.

Moving over to Buddy, the model has no poseability – what you see is what you get. The shaping on the character is great, and the overall character is well composed for its art style. The face is certainly hard to see as Will Ferrell, but is really good in its creator-esque way. With no over-reliance on new parts are a large amount of new prints, the character is great.

Where I find it the hardest to write about in this review is that the model doesn’t contain much more substance than this. There isn’t a crazy fun easter egg to find, the model has very little options beyond the pose it is in. It’s just kind of, there.

Verdict

Although the set may make a great holiday gift or a build around Christmas, there isn’t a lot here that I see favourable for long-standing LEGO fans.

The build techniques are relatively simple, and the set doesn’t offer a lot in the way of new elements. Nevertheless, to a general consumerist market, this is a set that I think will go well over the 2026 Christmas period. The character works well with the constraints the designer likely had, but I also struggle to see the character as Will Ferrell.

Not a perfect set, not my taste, but still very festive. If this was a set that was to be released in February 2027, it would flop incredibly hard. But hey, nothing stopping you from turning this into your own Elf on the Shelf.