Advent Calendar
online advent calendar
Twenty-five doors with a puzzle behind each: sudoku, hidden baubles, pairs, a sliding picture, tree lights, a reindeer maze, spot the difference and a word search, all in Christmas dress. Open one a day from 1 December, play all eight in turn or one kind for the whole month, and decorate your tree as the doors open. Every December brings a new calendar.
Play Advent CalendarHow to play
Tap a door to open it — from its own day in December, or earlier if you cannot wait. Each puzzle says what to do at the top of the screen. Touch and mouse: tap, drag across a word, trace the maze with a finger, hold a square to mark a bauble. Keyboard: the arrow keys move, Enter or Space chooses, 1 to 6 fill the sudoku and 0 clears a square, F marks a bauble, Escape goes back. The menu changes calendar: the mix, or one puzzle for all 25 doors, each keeping its own progress.
How it works
An advent calendar with 25 doors, one for each day from 1 to 25 December. Behind every door is a short Christmas puzzle: solve it and the door stays open on its drawing, and that drawing goes to hang on your tree.
- A door opens on its own day. Door 1 on 1 December, door 2 on the 2nd, all the way to Christmas. Doors 24 and 25 are bigger on the board and harder behind it.
- You can open one early, as with a paper calendar: the game asks whether you would not rather wait, and lets you if you insist.
- Missed a day? Past doors stay open, and from 1 to 15 January every door of the calendar is open, with no question asked: the holidays are not over yet.
- Outside the season there is a countdown to 1 December and eight practice doors, one for each puzzle, with a new puzzle every time.
Every December brings a new calendar. Nothing behind the doors is written by hand: each puzzle is generated from the year, the calendar and the door, so next year's are different, while this year's door 7 is the same puzzle on every device.
The eight puzzles
| Puzzle | What you do |
|---|---|
| Sudoku | A 6×6 grid in boxes of two rows by three: every row, column and box holds 1 to 6 once. Each grid has exactly one solution. |
| Hidden baubles | A small minesweeper with baubles instead of mines: open every square without breaking one. The first tap is always safe, and every board can be cleared by reasoning, with no guessing. |
| Pairs | Turn two cards at a time and find the matching drawings. |
| Sliding picture | A Christmas picture in 3×3 or 4×4 tiles, one missing: slide them back into place. Each tile carries a small number to help. |
| Tree lights | Turn the tiles until current from the plug reaches every wire and every bulb lights up. |
| Reindeer maze | Lead the reindeer through the maze to the sleigh, which waits in the farthest corner. |
| Spot the difference | Two winter pictures side by side: tap what changes from one to the other. A wrong tap costs nothing. |
| Word search | Christmas words hidden in a grid of letters, in your language. Drag across a word, or tap its first and last letter. |
The puzzles grow gently from door 1 to door 23: a larger maze, more pairs, one more word to find. Doors 24 and 25 are the big ones of the month.
Mix, or one puzzle for all 25
The first time you open the calendar it asks which one you want:
- Mix brings all eight puzzles in turn, in an order of its own each year, so two doors in a row are never the same puzzle and each one comes round at least three times.
- One puzzle for all 25 doors, if you would rather do a sudoku or a word search every day of Advent.
Each calendar keeps its own progress, and you can switch from the menu at any time: the doors you opened in the mix stay open when you come back to it.
Controls
- Touch or mouse: tap a door to open it. In the puzzles you tap, drag across a word, trace the maze with a finger, and hold a square to mark a bauble.
- Keyboard: the arrow keys move, Enter or Space chooses, 1 to 6 fill the sudoku and 0 clears a square, F marks a bauble, Escape goes back.
Each puzzle says what to do at the top of the screen, so nothing needs reading before you start.
Your tree
Every door you solve hangs a decoration on your Christmas tree: the drawing behind that door. Door 24 is the star at the top, and door 25 lights it. The tree is the calendar's record of the month, and on Christmas Day, with all 25 doors open, it is full.
More for Advent
The advent challenges are another calendar: 25 doors with the daily challenge of Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, Sudoku or Minesweeper. The other games for the time of year are on the seasonal games page.
Common questions
Is it free? Yes. It plays in your browser, with no sign-up and nothing to download.
Does it work on a phone? Yes, on a phone, a tablet or a computer, upright or sideways.
Where is my progress saved? On your device, in the browser. Nothing is sent anywhere, so a calendar started on the phone does not follow you to the computer.
What if I open the calendar in summer? You get the countdown to 1 December and the practice doors, and you can peek at the coming December's calendar, with the same question first.
More games
Also available in: Italiano, Español, Français, Português, Deutsch, Polski, Türkçe, Bahasa Indonesia, Nederlands, Română, Čeština