Hello and welcome to the 2024 Advent Calendar Challenge!
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 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 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 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.
And last but not least, I've finally flipped the points scoring system back to the way I've always thought it should be, so possibly for this year only the earlier a successful guess occurs, the more points it is worth - from 24 points on day 1 all the way down to 1 point on Christmas Eve. As a result, there is no longer any penalty points for joining the game late. We'll see how it goes!
Good Luck!
| Pos | Player / Team | Score | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | miniscriv |  |
79 (6) | R | ||
| 2 | Tony Wilson |  |
72 (7) | PB 116 |
||
| 3 | Glen Bryant |  |
61 (6) | PB | ||
| 4 | Tom White |  |
60 (4) | PB 121 |
||
| 5 | Douglas Cameron |  |
45 (3) | PB 126 |
||
| 6 | Jen Fegan |  |
38 (2) | PB 55 |
||
| 7 | Joseph Palmer |  |
37 (4) | PB 116 |
||
| 8 | Mark Coughlan | |
29 (3) | PB 123 |
||
| 9 | James Laughlin | |
28 (4) | PB 174 |
||
| ⇑1 | 10 | Chris Davey | |
27 (5) | PB 110 |
|
| ⇓1 | 11 | Laz Kay |  |
27 (3) | PB 68 |
|
| 12 | Matt Nunn | |
25 (5) | PB 88 |
||
| ⇑1 | 13 | Neil Blake | |
24 (3) | PB 157 |
|
| ⇓1 | 14 | Ben Procter |  |
24 (3) | PB 164 |
|
| ⇑2 | 15 | Kevin Brown | |
22 (4) | PB 108 |
|
| ⇑2 | 16 | Veronica White | |
22 (3) | PB 135 |
|
| ⇓2 | 17 | Chris Green | |
22 (3) | PB 92 |
|
| ⇓2 | 18 | Peter Smyth | |
22 (2) | PB 156 |
|
| 19 | Simon Gosney | |
21 (4) | PB 106 |
||
| ⇑2 | 20 | Matthew Frost | |
20 (4) | PB 172 |
|
| ⇓1 | 21 | Nina Dale | |
20 (3) | PB 93 |
|
| ⇓1 | 22 | Gagandeep Singh Bharij | |
20 (1) | PB 57 |
|
| 23 | Simon Rutter |  |
17 (4) | PB 146 |
||
| 24 | Mike Krotosky | |
15 (1) | PB 80 |
||
| 25 | Antony Brown | |
13 (4) | PB 121 |
||
| 26 | Håkan Wolgé | |
13 (3) | PB 162 |
||
| ⇓1 | 27 | Eleda Johnson | |
12 (2) | PB 117 |
|
| ⇑1 | 28 | Lorna Blake |  |
11 (4) | PB 105 |
|
| ⇓1 | 29 | Steph Coughlan | |
11 (3) | PB 139 |
|
| 30 | Nigel White | |
10 (4) | PB 133 |
||
| 31 | Samantha Scrivin |  |
9 (2) | PB 183 |
||
| 32 | Andrew Dale | |
8 (1) | PB 131 |
||
| 33 | Cassie Laughlin | |
7 (1) | PB 111 |
||
| ⇑1 | 34 | Sean White | |
5 (2) | PB 163 |
|
| ⇓1 | 35 | Emma Tuckey | |
5 (2) | PB 81 |
|
| ⇓1 | 36 | Peter Lupton | |
4 (1) | PB 21 |
|
| 37 | Geoff Marshall | |
3 (1) | PB 82 |
||
| 38 | Rosie Wallbank | |
2 (1) | PB 91 |
||
| 39 | Ross Turnbull | |
1 (1) | PB 109 |
||
| = | Andrew Chilcraft | |
1 (1) | PB 131 |
||
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:
| Pos | Team | # players | Score | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Aries | 6 players | 101 (21) | +1 | |
| 2 | |
Pisces | 5 players | 92 (15) | +1 | |
| 3 | |
Gemini | 5 players | 84 (14) | +1 | |
| 4 | |
Taurus | 5 players | 78 (18) | +1 | |
| 5 | |
Virgo | 2 players | 65 (7) | +1 | |
| 6 | |
Leo | 5 players | 63 (13) | +2 | |
| 7 | |
Aquarius | 2 players | 48 (7) | +1 | |
| 8 | |
Cancer | 4 players | 42 (7) | ||
| 9 | |
Libra | 3 players | 35 (8) | +2 | |
| 10 | |
Capricorn | 1 player | 17 (4) | +1 | |
| 11 | |
Scorpio | 1 player | 11 (4) | +1 | |
| 12 | |
Sagittarius | 1 player | 9 (2) | ||
LATEST COMPETITION UPDATES: 
Items uncovered so far:
| 1 | Gingerbread Man | 2 | Stocking | 3 | Candy Cane | 4 | Marshmallows | 5 | Gifts | 6 | Bauble | ||
| 7 | Xmas Pudding | 8 | Santa Hat & Candy Cane |
9 | Yule Log | 10 | Sleigh & Reindeer |
11 | Tree | 12 | Christmas Jumper | ||
| 13 | Snowman | 14 | Turkey & Candle |
15 | Santa | 16 | House | 17 | Skier | 18 | Tinsel | ||
| 19 | Biscuits | 20 | Chicken | 21 | Toy Car | 22 | Wellies & Snowman |
23 | Sunglasses | 24 | Chimney | ||
Decisions
All decisions (disciplinary etc.), other than those to award points, are detailed publically. Please visit our decisions repository.
Random Stats
| Number of players: | 40 | |
| Number of players who can/cannot still win: | 1 / 39 | |
| Number of players who have been invited but are yet to play: | 3 | e.g. Matt Foulkes. Why, Matt, 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...