Hello and welcome to the 2025 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 2024, 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 made another tweak to the scoring system. Instead of running from 24 points for a correct guess on day 1 all the way down to 1 point for a correct guess on day 24, the points on offer now only decreases by ½ a point each day, meaning there are 12½ points available on Christmas Eve (an increase of 11½) and 99 available in the last week (an increase of 72). Hopefully this strikes a decent balance between rewarding the guesses correctly and keeping it competitive longer. We'll see!
Good Luck!
| Pos | Player / Team | Current Guess | Score | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Veronica White |  |
gift | 60½ (3) | PB 135 |
||
| 2 | Joseph Palmer | |
shrub | 46½ (2) | PB 116 |
||
| 3 | Matt Nunn |  |
candle | 42 (2) | PB 88 |
||
| 4 | Nina Dale |  |
mistletoe | 41½ (2) | PB 93 |
||
| 5 | Emma Tuckey |  |
scarf | 41 (2) | PB 81 |
||
| 6 | miniscriv |  |
holly | 39½ (2) | PB 79 |
||
| = | Steph Coughlan | |
mistletoe | 39½ (2) | PB 139 |
||
| 8 | Samantha Scrivin |  |
cracker | 38½ (2) | PB 183 |
||
| 9 | Chris Green |  |
dove | 37½ (2) | PB 92 |
||
| 10 | Neil Blake | |
gloves | 24 (1) | PB 157 |
||
| 11 | Tony Wilson | |
crown | 23½ (1) | PB 116 |
||
| 12 | Antony Brown |  |
gift | 22½ (1) | PB 121 |
||
| = | Gagandeep Singh Bharij |  |
|
22½ (1) | PB 57 |
||
| = | Simon Gosney | |
shrub | 22½ (1) | PB 106 |
||
| = | Mark Coughlan | |
gloves | 22½ (1) | PB 123 |
||
| 16 | Andrew Dale | |
|
22 (1) | PB 131 |
||
| = | Sean White | |
holly | 22 (1) | PB 163 |
||
| 18 | Simon Rutter |  |
scarf | 21½ (1) | PB 146 |
||
| 19 | Lorna Blake |  |
holly | 21 (1) | PB 105 |
||
| = | Ross Turnbull | |
gloves | 21 (1) | PB 109 |
||
| = | Douglas Cameron | |
shrub | 21 (1) | PB 126 |
||
| 22 | Jen Fegan | |
|
20 (1) | PB 55 |
||
| 23 | Nigel White | |
dove | 19½ (1) | PB 133 |
||
| 24 | Edward Haslam | |
shrub | 18½ (1) | PB 123 |
||
| = | Andrew Chilcraft | |
crown | 18½ (1) | PB 131 |
||
| = | Cassie Laughlin |  |
|
18½ (1) | PB 111 |
||
| 27 | James Laughlin | |
shrub | 0 (0) | PB 174 |
||
| = | Laz Kay | |
dove | 0 (0) | PB 68 |
||
| = | Matthew Frost | |
candle | 0 (0) | PB 172 |
||
| = | Håkan Wolgé | |
holly | 0 (0) | PB 162 |
||
| = | Glen Bryant | |
scarf | 0 (0) | PB 61 |
||
| = | Tom White | |
cracker | 0 (0) | PB 121 |
||
| = | Ben Procter | |
holly | 0 (0) | PB 164 |
||
| = | Chris Davey | |
shrub | 0 (0) | PB 110 |
||
| = | Kevin Brown | |
dove | 0 (0) | PB 108 |
||
| = | Peter Smyth | |
scarf | 0 (0) | PB 156 |
||
| = | Eleda Johnson | |
scarf | 0 (0) | PB 117 |
||
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 | |
Aquarius | 2 players | 84 (5) | ||
| 2 | |
Pisces | 4 players | 72 (6) | ||
| 3 | |
Aries | 6 players | 66 (5) | ||
| 4 | |
Leo | 5 players | 60½ (5) | ||
| 5 | |
Taurus | 5 players | 60½ (4) | ||
| 6 | |
Gemini | 4 players | 53 (3) | ||
| 7 | |
Sagittarius | 1 player | 38½ (2) | ||
| 8 | |
Libra | 3 players | 33 (2) | ||
| 9 | |
Cancer | 3 players | 22½ (1) | ||
| 10 | |
Capricorn | 1 player | 21½ (1) | ||
| 11 | |
Scorpio | 1 player | 21 (1) | ||
| 12 | |
Virgo | 2 players | 18½ (1) | ||
LATEST COMPETITION UPDATES: 
Items uncovered so far:
| 1 | Pudding | 2 | Stocking | 3 | Star | 4 | Bauble | 5 | Teddy | 6 | Woolly Hat | ||
| 7 | Jingle Bell | 8 | Snowman | 9 | Santa Hat & Socks |
10 | Candy Cane | 11 | Robin | 12 | Gingerbread Tree | ||
Decisions
All decisions (disciplinary etc.), other than those to award points, are detailed publically. Please visit our decisions repository.
Random Stats
| Number of players: | 37 | |
| Number of players who can/cannot still win: | 37 / 0 | |
| Number of players who have been invited but are yet to play: | 4 | e.g. Peter Lupton. Why, Peter, why? :-( |
| Number of points remaining: | 183 |
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...