The 2026 LEGO Friends Advent Calendar, set 42698, is priced at 49.99 CAD for 211 pieces and rated for ages 6 and up, the smallest piece count in this year's five-theme lineup. Rather than a licensed franchise, it's built entirely around LEGO's own Friends characters and a winter-wonderland setting.
Three minidolls anchor the set: Nova, Liann, and Aliya. Unlike the microdoll format used in this year's Disney calendar, Friends uses LEGO's standard minidoll scale, closer in size to a traditional minifigure than Disney's smaller format.
Alongside the three minidolls, six mini animal figures round out the cast: a seal, pony, weasel, polar bear, penguin, and bunny, giving the set a noticeably animal-heavy supporting lineup compared to the other 2026 themes.
This guide covers the full confirmed cast, the specific winter activities tied to the minidolls, and how this calendar's format compares to City, the other lower-priced 2026 theme.
The three minidolls are confirmed by name directly on LEGO's official product listing, a level of specificity not every Advent Calendar theme provides for its recurring characters. Across the calendar's 24 doors, the three are shown writing letters to Santa, wrapping gifts, and throwing snowballs.
Additional confirmed activities include sleigh rides, enjoying hot chocolate, and building a snowman, giving the trio a clear seasonal storyline running through the set rather than a series of disconnected daily reveals.
The seal, pony, weasel, polar bear, penguin, and bunny give this calendar the widest animal variety of any 2026 theme. None of the other four calendars include this many distinct animal figures in a single box.
That animal-heavy cast fits naturally with Friends' winter-wonderland framing, most of the six, particularly the polar bear, seal, and penguin, are cold-weather animals that reinforce the set's snowy setting rather than feeling randomly included.
Beyond the minidolls and animals, the set includes festive hats, gifts, cookies, marshmallows for toasting, and a passport as confirmed accessories. The passport in particular is an unusual inclusion, hinting at a travel or exploration angle layered on top of the core winter-activities theme.
These smaller accessory pieces are easy to overlook next to the minidolls and animals, but they're what actually let the winter activities described in the set's own marketing, snowball throwing, marshmallow toasting, play out visually once assembled.
Friends and City are the only two 2026 calendars priced at 49.99 CAD, but they take very different approaches to that shared budget tier. City leans on a single unified Santa's Workshop scene with a fold-out playmat, while Friends spreads its content across three named characters and six distinct animals with no equivalent playmat mechanic.
Collectors choosing between the two lower-priced calendars should weigh character-driven storytelling, Friends' clear strength, against City's unified scene-and-playmat format before deciding which fits better.
Friends' minidoll scale is closer to a standard minifigure than Disney's smaller microdoll format used elsewhere in the 2026 lineup, which matters for anyone planning to display or store figures from multiple 2026 calendars side by side.
Mixing minidoll-scale figures from Friends with microdoll-scale figures from Disney in the same display won't look uniform, a detail worth knowing before combining multiple 2026 calendars into a single collection.
LEGO Friends doesn't carry a built-in holiday identity the way a licensed franchise like Star Wars or Marvel might. Instead, this calendar builds its own seasonal world entirely around Nova, Liann, and Aliya, using a generic winter setting rather than tying into an existing movie or show moment.
That freedom is part of why the set can lean so heavily on original activities like sleigh rides and letter-writing to Santa rather than recreating a scene from established source material. It gives the three minidolls their own dedicated holiday story rather than borrowing one from elsewhere.
Because Friends isn't tied to a single licensed property with a fixed cast, LEGO has more freedom to introduce new minidolls or swap the winter setting in future years without breaking continuity the way a licensed calendar might. That flexibility is worth keeping in mind for anyone deciding whether to start a yearly Friends collection.
A collector building out multiple years of Friends calendars gets a rotating cast of original characters rather than the same six or so licensed names appearing on repeat, which is a genuinely different collecting experience from the franchise-driven calendars in this year's lineup.
Nova, Liann, and Aliya.
Six: a seal, pony, weasel, polar bear, penguin, and bunny.
49.99 CAD for 211 pieces.
No, Friends uses LEGO's standard minidoll scale, larger than Disney's microdoll format.
Three minidolls and six animal figures are easy to misplace once the holiday storyline wraps up. An EVORETRO Lego Mini-figurine Display Case keeps Nova, Liann, Aliya, and their winter companions together year-round.
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