Hello and welcome to the 2016 Advent Calendar Challenge!
Did you know, this website is in the same design as a website I first made fifteen years ago? I'm going to stop promising a redesign, it is clear I don't mean it.
The Advent Calendar Challenge is a fun yearly competition, where players are invited to guess what the pictures behind the windows on my advent calendar will be each day. Points are awarded (from 1 point on December 1st all the way up to 24 on Christmas Eve) for correctly guessing the picture, and the winner is simply the person who gets the most points over the course of the competition. Simple. Easy. Fun. If you're still a bit in the dark about things, have a look at the 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 and 2003 competitions to see what went on.
If you played last year you should get a PIN in your inbox automatically, and you can get started by submitting your guess in the form below! If you didn't play last year and want to play, apply for a PIN via the registration page. Once you have received your PIN, use the form below to submit your guess. You can change your guess as often as you like. The guess registered at the time of a window being opened is assessed for points on each day, and please note there is no need to sumbit a new guess every day as your guess remains in place until you change it or until it comes up, however long that may be! Your guess need not be unique. The eventual winner might win a top secret prize...
Two important points about choosing your guess:
- you HAVE to re-submit a guess after you score points, as scoring players have their guess wiped clean. You may, of course, re-set the same guess if you wish. This is to deter players from trying to set a lucky one-off guess and win despite never visiting the website again!
- guesses must be chosen from a list - this list contains all items that occur in the calendar (however many times they occur, they are listed only once), and only those items. This should help mitigate against a random calendar destroying the competition!
Good Luck!
| CURRENT STANDINGS | ||||||||
| 1 | Matthew Frost |  |
120 pts | 6 | PB | |||
| 2 | Michelle Mckay |  |
108 pts | 6 | R | |||
| 3 | Steph Foulkes |  |
103 pts | 5 | PB | |||
| 4 | Lorna Blake |  |
94 pts | 5 | PB 104 |
|||
| 5 | Sean White |  |
91 pts | 5 | PB | |||
| 6 | Sebastian Maudling | |
89 pts | 4 | PB | |||
| 7 | Håkan Wolgé |  |
88 pts | 4 | PB | |||
| 8 | Simon Rutter |  |
87 pts | 4 | PB | |||
| = | Andrew Chilcraft | |
87 pts | 4 | PB | |||
| 10 | Mark Coughlan | |
83 pts | 5 | PB | |||
| 11 | Jenny McGinn | |
80 pts | 4 | PB | |||
| ⇑1 | = | Chris Davey | |
80 pts | 4 | PB | ||
| 13 | Ross Turnbull | |
77 pts | 4 | PB 78 |
|||
| ⇑1 | 14 | Nigel White | |
75 pts | 4 | PB | ||
| ⇑1 | 15 | Joseph Palmer |  |
71 pts | 5 | PB | ||
| ⇑1 | 16 | Al Brown | |
70 pts | 4 | PB | ||
| ⇑1 | 17 | Kevin Brown | |
69 pts | 3 | PB | ||
| ⇑1 | 18 | Neil Blake | |
67 pts | 3 | PB 93 |
||
| ⇑1 | 19 | Antony Brown | |
66 pts | 3 | PB 121 |
||
| ⇑1 | = | Tom White |  |
66 pts | 3 | PB | ||
| ⇑1 | 21 | Matt Nunn | |
64 pts | 3 | PB 69 |
||
| ⇑1 | 22 | Veronica White | |
63 pts | 3 | PB 71 |
||
| ⇑1 | = | Ben Procter |  |
63 pts | 3 | PB 115 |
||
| ⇑2 | 24 | Samantha Myers |  |
60 pts | 3 | PB 66 |
||
| ⇑3 | 25 | Jade Baines |  |
58 pts | 3 | PB | ||
| ⇑2 | = | Lisa Seixas | |
58 pts | 3 | PB | ||
| ⇑3 | 27 | Chris Green | |
53 pts | 3 | PB | ||
| ⇓14 | 28 | Damian Cook | |
52 pts | 3 | PB 85 |
||
| ⇑4 | 29 | William Keppel | |
46 pts | 2 | PB 69 |
||
| ⇑6 | 30 | Dave Byrd | |
43 pts | 2 | PB 51 |
||
| ⇓6 | 31 | Lorraine Craggs | |
39 pts | 2 | PB | ||
| ⇑9 | 32 | Mike Krotosky | |
30 pts | 2 | PB 51 |
||
| ⇓4 | 33 | Andy Nicholls | |
30 pts | 2 | PB 45 |
||
| ⇓3 | 34 | Peter Smyth | |
23 pts | 1 | PB 79 |
||
| ⇓3 | = | Wendy Scrivin | |
23 pts | 1 | PB 59 |
||
| ⇓3 | 36 | David Wilford | |
22 pts | 1 | PB 29 |
||
| ⇓2 | 37 | Gagandeep Singh Bharij | |
21 pts | 1 | PB 57 |
||
| ⇓2 | 38 | Hugo Yap | |
19 pts | 1 | R | ||
| ⇓1 | 39 | Alfie Cochrane | |
18 pts | 1 | PB | ||
| ⇓1 | 40 | Christina Dale | |
17 pts | 1 | PB 45 |
||
| ⇓1 | 41 | Ellie Awford | |
15 pts | 1 | R | ||
| 42 | M. Asim Omar | |
5 pts | 1 | PB 43 |
|||
| 43 | Andrew Dale | |
3 pts | 1 | PB 54 |
|||
| SCORE | ||||||||
This year's teams' championship will be the same again - I'm interested in finding out which astrological star-sign is the best, so I'll be trying to coax your date of birth out of you shortly! Current standings:
| TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS | |||||||
| 1 | |
Leo | ×6 | 441 pts | |||
| 2 | |
Libra | ×6 | 331 pts | |||
| 3 | |
Taurus | ×5 | 326 pts | |||
| 4 | |
Aries | ×3 | 274 pts | |||
| 5 | |
Pisces | ×6 | 261 pts | |||
| 6 | |
Scorpio | ×3 | 204 pts | |||
| 7 | |
Cancer | ×5 | 199 pts | |||
| 8 | |
Aquarius | ×2 | 134 pts | |||
| 9 | |
Gemini | ×4 | 121 pts | |||
| 10 | |
Capricorn | ×1 | 87 pts | |||
| 11 | |
Sagittarius | ×1 | 60 pts | |||
| 12 | |
Virgo | ×1 | 58 pts | |||
| SCORE | |||||||
LATEST COMPETITION UPDATES: 
Items uncovered so far:
| 1 | Car | 2 | Cracker | 3 | Toy Train | 4 | Sleigh | 5 | Wreath | 6 | Child | ||
| 7 | Candy Cane | 8 | Snowflake | 9 | Candle | 10 | Bauble | 11 | Hat | 12 | Christmas Pudding |
||
| 13 | Bell | 14 | Angel | 15 | Reindeer | 16 | Robin | 17 | Star | 18 | Stocking | ||
| 19 | Holly | 20 | Teddy | 21 | Christmas tree |
22 | Gift | 23 | Snowman | 24 | Santa | ||
Decisions
All decisions (disciplinary etc.), other than those to award points, are detailed publically. Please visit our decisions repository.
Random Stats
| Number of players: | 43 | |
| Number of players who can/cannot still win: | 1 / 42 | |
| Number of players who have been invited but are yet to play: | 9 | e.g. Geoff Marshall. Why, Geoff, why? :-( |
| Number of points remaining: | 0 |
And to end off this mammoth page, a few subnotes. Have a look at the all-time stats page. Not many stats mind you, just a constantly updating all-time performance table. Clicking a player name in either the current standings or the stats table gives you a player profile page, showing their past performances in the ACC and a little picture just cos. And finally the rules in full. Subject to change of course...