LEGO Trotting Lantern: Celebrating Lunar New Year 2025

Each year, LEGO introduces special themed sets to celebrate the Lunar New Year, delighting fans with their creativity and cultural significance. In 2021, during the Year of the Ox, LEGO released a Spring Festival set set in a traditional garden. Fast forward to 2024, the Year of the Dragon, and LEGO launched the Auspicious Dragon set, designed to mimic a bronze statue mounted on a stand.

LEGO Spring Festival Trotting Lantern

As we approach 2025, the Year of the Snake, LEGO has announced three new sets to honor this occasion. The first set features a Lucky Cat. The second, named Good Fortune, is a pastiche of Chinese iconography that includes elements like a decorative fan, a calligraphy pen and scroll, and golden ingots. The third and most luxurious set, which we've built and photographed for this review, is the LEGO Trotting Lantern, a stunning replica of a traditional lantern.

We Build The LEGO Trotting Lantern

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The exterior of the Trotting Lantern set is a testament to detailed craftsmanship. Every surface is adorned with decorative elements, from the red lanterns hanging from the buttresses to the intricate gold detailing on the walls' borders, which themselves depict scenes of open skies and clouds framed by rocks.

Building the lantern involves a fascinating process of layering. You start with the basic lantern structure, then add layers of detail, and finally top it off with even more intricate elements. This build process evokes the same sense of delight I experienced with the now-retired LEGO Carousel, where anticipation builds as you wonder what decorative piece will come next.

Traditional trotting lanterns, originating from the Han Dynasty, used oil lamps to project silhouettes onto the lamp's sides and generate heat to rotate propellers, which in turn moved the silhouettes. LEGO's version incorporates a mechanism that attempts to replicate this effect. An upright rod activates a light brick, casting a yellow glow through a clear piece with a black-lined image, which projects onto the lantern's side. Turning the rod rotates the image around the lantern.

The packaging suggests the ability to project the image onto a wall or other surface, but in practice, the projection is blurry and unclear. This feature seems overpromoted, especially since original trotting lanterns were not designed for such use.

The upper tier of the lantern opens to reveal three hidden dioramas: a food stall serving dumplings, a decorations stall, and a shadow puppet theater. These are cleverly concealed within the lantern's cylinder, creating a surprising depth and space. The set includes five minifigures, one wearing a snake costume, and accessories like a plate of dumplings, a red envelope, a shadow puppet, and chopsticks.

The decision to purchase this set might hinge on what aspect appeals to you most. If it's the lit-up, rotating mechanical effect, it may not meet expectations in terms of impressiveness or clarity. However, if you're seeking an aesthetically stunning piece that hides intricate minifigure-scaled scenery within a beautifully detailed container, the LEGO Trotting Lantern is a marvelous way to celebrate the Lunar New Year. It's suitable for ages 9 and up, though its complexity suggests an 18+ build.

For more LEGO inspiration, explore our selections of the best LEGO sets overall, the best Marvel LEGO sets, and the most expensive LEGO sets.

The LEGO Trotting Lantern, Set #80116, retails for $129.99 and comprises 1295 pieces. It is available now at Amazon and the LEGO Store.