Hello and welcome to the Advent Calendar Challenge 2009 - promising to be, quite possibly, the best Advent Calendar guessing game you'll ever play. Here's the same spiel I trot out every year about it all:

If you are new to the whole concept of the ACC, as we afficionados like to refer to it, let me explain. The Advent Calendar Challenge is a fun yearly competition, where players are invited to guess what pictures might possibly crop up behind the windows on my advent calendar 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 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 and 2003 competitions to see what went on.

Right, if you played last year you should have a PIN in your inbox, 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 by emailing acc@scriv.me.uk. 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. Your guess need not be unique but must be kept clean (this is a family competition!). The eventual winner might win a top secret prize...

The compeition ended rather messily as I ended up in hospital with serious digestive tract problems that kept me there from the 23rd until New Year's Eve. After much thought I decided that I just wanted to tidy this up as quickly as possible today, rather than drag it out as I could have done. As most people changed their guess to a Day 24 guess despite door 23 remaining closed anyway, the procedure I followed to complete the competition was:

• Open door 23 and assess players for points according to what their guess was at 0900 on the 23rd
• Immediately open door 24 and assess for points as per everyone's current guess, as normal

The final standings are therefore as below:

This year's teams' championship was slightly different - I was interested in finding out which “new intake” is the best, so teams were formed based on the year of first entry to the competition. Final standings:

Pictures uncovered:

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...