As the most popular toy in the world, LEGO releases hundreds of new sets each and every year, which makes holiday shopping a bit of a nightmare, especially if you’re not keyed into the complexities of this company’s catalogue.

In this Gift Guide you’ll find out top picks from the last year of LEGO. As a luxury product with many sets that can cost more than a month’s salary, we also tried to stick to sets on the cheaper side to make December shopping less painful.

We recommend also reading our tips for buying LEGO in South Africa and checking back to Hypertext in 2025 for an update on those recommendations. We’ll be updating our recommendations to fit new business practices that some stores have implemented as well as entirely new places to shop such as Amazon South Africa and Bricktopia.

77071 Fortnite Supply Llama | R699

LEGO Fortnite sets have been anticipated for years and they finally arrived in 2024. This buildable version of the Supply Llama has 691 pieces and builds a sizable 24 centimetre high toy that is great for both play and display.

The llama has a play feature where loot can be loaded into the top of the structure and then emptied out of the side. It’s a nice compromise to breaking the llama apart as you’d expect from a piñata, as having to rebuild all 691 pieces every time would be a real pain.

Interestingly the loot inside is all made to work with minifigures, but none are included in the set. All of the current LEGO minifigures are instead packed into the Battle Bus set. These two sets are synergistic in that way so, for the big LEGO or Fortnite lover that you need presents for, these may be the best.

Two more LEGO Fortnite sets exist in the form of the Durrr Burger and Peely Bone.

Buy here: Great Yellow Brick | KOODOO

42602 Friends Space Research Rover | R899

While we like to think of LEGO as being gender-neutral for the most part, the Friends theme is catered towards girls. What makes Friends, and LEGO as a whole, great, is that the theme still puts out some of the best sets. This space rover is a great example giving us a futuristic vehicle with big chunky tires, a wild colour scheme we love and some alien plant life that looks suitably otherworldly.

We also love the little details this set has to offer like the included dog that has its own space suit, the robotic arms on the front of the vehicle and the unique modularity of the set where the cockpit can be removed from the wheels and suspension.

This set is part of LEGO’s cross-theme idea simply called “Space”. We explain more of what Space is in this separate article, but it’s a loose play system joined up by air lock modules that have universal sizing, allowing them to be joined together and added to when buying more sets. There’s even a second Space set inside of Friends, and many more options in other themes.

Buy here: Great Yellow Brick | Toys r Us

10328 ICONS Bouquet of Roses | R879 – R1 099

LEGO’s buildable flowers and plants have become a common sight in homes the world over, even for those who aren’t LEGO fans or collectors. The simple fun of building a flower display that will never die, wither or lose its lustre is a compelling one and the range’s real trick is that, the more you buy, the larger and more vibrant your flower collection will become.

The range of LEGO flowers and plants is huge with even holiday wreaths, potted Chrysanthemums, a Bonsai tree display and much more all available.

For our pick in this guide, however, we wanted a timeless classic with the biggest appeal for the most amount of people, and we can’t think of a better fit than this lovely bouquet of red roses. The set features three different builds for the various roses to represent different stages of growth of the flower. The break up all the red, there’s also four sprigs of white baby’s breath included too.

This is not only a great holiday gift but it will be Valentine’s Day in just a few months where this will work perfectly too.

Buy here: Great Yellow Brick | Amazon.co.za | Importatoy | Bricktopia | Takealot

42179 Technic Planet Earth and Moon in Orbit | R1 155 – R1 499

It’s bad form to have a list of the best LEGO sets without at least one entry from Technic. This LEGO theme is very different from the rest as it uses an entirely separate building system that relies on gears, liftarms, axles and pins. For those who have only built with LEGO’s usual bricks and plates – which is referred to as “System” – this may be a huge surprise when you open the box.

This set is arguably the best example of what Technic has to offer as the theme relies heavily on movement and mechanisms. This set shows off the scale rotation of the sun, Earth and moon, all operated by a small hand crank. As you turn the crank the three celestial bodies move at varying speeds which are relatively accurate to the real world.

Not only is this a real test of dexterity to build, but it also teaches about gear ratios, relative velocities, space mechanics and more, all in one set. Some have stated that, while they like the set, they don’t find its appearance appealing with its mix of colours and exposed internals, but we really like how this looks, even when it’s not in motion.

For fans of Discworld we have to let you know that we made a small custom build to replace Earth with the Great World Turtle and there’s a free parts list and instructions here.

Buy here: Great Yellow Brick | Amazon.co.za | Bricktopia | Takealot

10338 ICONS Transformers Bumblebee | R1 444 – R1 699

Toy rivals Hasbro and LEGO partnered up again to bring us a buildable version of the lovable Transformer Bumblebee. Like regular Transformers toys, Bumblebee can switch between robot and vehicle modes without rebuilding the entire set – just twist and turn the build until the process is done.

This version of Bumblebee is unique as he’s a lot larger compared to other Bumblebee toys but we like this take that LEGO brought us as the larger size was required to make a Transformer that is strong and sturdy enough for the company’s strict internal guidelines.

Bumblebee also comes with accessories in the form of a blaster, an information plaque and two choices of licence plates.

A LEGO version of Optimus Prime is still available, but it’s much more expensive with a RRP of R3 399. That being said, Optimus Prime was released back in June 2022, so it has been discounted several times over the years. Those who want one should shop around and be patient until they can find one closer to R2 500, which is a much fairer price for the set. The Takealot historical price checker even reveals that the set was discounted all the way down to R2 000 at one point.

Buy here: Great Yellow Brick | Importatoy | Bricktopia | Takealot