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!

Final Standings

	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 was 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:

Final Team Championship 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)

Items uncovered: