2017 LEGO employee gift – LEGO 4002017 Nutcracker

Every year, LEGO gifts their full time employees (including retail staff) with a unique LEGO set. Last year, the employee gift was a nod to the 50 year anniversary of LEGO trains. This year, the 40 year anniversary of the Technic line gives birth to a heavily Technic based 4002017 Nutcracker as the employee gift set.

*It should not be confused with the other nutcracker set 40254 that was given out for qualifying purchases to retail customers.

These employee gifts seem to have been distributed late last week and thanks to the magic of the internet and social media, we have managed to scrounge out some pictures to share with everyone else who weren’t so lucky to get them like us. Let’s at least enjoy the pictures.

This gift set comes in a lift out (like smartphones nowadays) box that’s shaped like a mini guardhouse for the nutcracker to reside in. Inside, there’s firstly the classy instruction booklet up top. Taking that out, you’ll see a small lift out cover depicting a picture of the actual build, and the bricks are all packed beneath this cover. We are guessing the box is intended to double up as a display piece where you can display both the nutcracker build and the guardhouse(box) at once.

Once the build is completed, there’s a lever at the back of the build to activate the “nutcracking movement” which also moves arms and mouth but we are pretty sure that the set is not able to crack actual nuts as its real life counterpart. We’re more than happy to be proven wrong on this, though. (See IG video in the embed from #normafernandes below)

What a wonderfully thought out gift by LEGO to it’s employees; from the packaging to the contents and the wonderful Technic heavy build. Congratulations to employees of The Lego Group for this wonderful 4002017 Nutcracker.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bcic9CrhQCm/

*Update: Here’s a link to a “blow by blow” unboxing and build as re-shared by ea8631 in brickset

Here’s an image of a wooden nutcracker for the benefit of us Asian AfoLs who aren’t used to such a Christmas feature in our household.