There seem to be a bumper list of mathematical advent calendars this year, even though the stellar efforts of Katie and Christian’s Aperiodvent Calendar 2015 aren’t being repeated. There aren’t yet enough for an advent calendar with a different mathematical advent calendar behind each door, so we thought a straight round up was the way to go.

Chalkdust, a “magazine for the mathematically curious” created by students in the Department of Mathematics at UCL, is publishing the Chalkdust Advent Calendar, with a mathematical curio posted every day by a team of contributors.

Matthew Scroggs, part of the Chalkdust team, has his own mscroggs.co.uk Advent Calendar with a prize competition. Here’s what his site says about that:

Behind each day (except Christmas Day), there is a puzzle with a three-digit answer. Each of these answers is one clue to a murder mystery logic puzzle, revealing the murderer, motive, location, and weapon. Ten randomly selected people who solve all the puzzles and submit their answers to the murder mystery using the form behind the door on the 25th will win prizes!

With The Indisputable Santa Mathematical Advent Calendar, Hannah Fry and Thomas Oléron Evans promise “Christmathsy bits and pieces, one a day, advent calendar style. Assuming we don’t run out of ideas, that is…” Given that their new book, The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus, offers “a dazzling, magical mathematical tour of the festive season with the most elegant mathematical solutions to your Christmas conundrums”, you’d hope they wouldn’t run out of ideas!

Plus Magazine offers The 2016 Plus Advent Calendar, promising that “each door of this year’s advent calendar conceals a favourite item from our Maths in a minute series, explaining important mathematical concepts in just a few words.”

The Nrich Primary Advent Calendar, with its attractive three houses, offers “twenty-four activities, one for each day in the run-up to Christmas”, saying: “This year, the tasks focus on encouraging mathematical habits of mind: being curious, being thoughtful, being collaborative and being determined”.

The Nrich Secondary Advert Calendar, with its pleasingly non-rectangular layout, offers behind each door “one of our favourite mathematical questions – a mixture of short and longer tasks”, noting that “this year, many of the tasks have been chosen to encourage mathematical creativity”.