Puzzles

It's nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened: after years of gradual wear and tear, Santa's magic sleigh has fallen apart. You need to help Santa build a new sleigh so that he can deliver presents before Christmas is ruined for everyone.

The magic sleigh was built from parts bought from magic factories all over the world, and only the exact combination of parts will be magic enough to let Santa deliver all the world's presents on Christmas Eve—but it's been a long time since a magic sleigh was last built and no-one can remember exactly which combination of parts is needed. You need to use the clues below to work out which parts to order to build a new magic sleigh. There are five parts that you need to order (runners, a chassis, a present holder, a seat for Santa, and a front of the sleigh with reins). There are nine suppliers (numbered from 1 to 9) that Santa can order parts from.

You can use this page to try ordering parts for a sleigh.

It's nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened: there's been a major malfunction in multiple machines in Santa's toy factory, and not enough presents have been made. Santa has a backup warehouse full of wrapped presents that can be used in the case of severe emergency, but the warehouse is locked. You need to help Santa work out the code to unlock the warehouse so that he can deliver the presents before Christmas is ruined for everyone.

The information needed to work out the code to the warehouse is known by Santa and his three most trusted elves: Santa is remembering a three-digit number, and each elf is remembering a one-digit and a three-digit number. If Santa and the elves all agree that the emergency warehouse should be opened, they can work out the code for the door as follows:

But this year, there is a complication: the three elves are on a diplomatic mission to Mars to visit Martian Santa and cannot be contacted, so you need to piece together their numbers from the clues they have left behind:

You can to open the door here.

It's nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened: a machine in Santa's toy factory has malfunctioned, and is unable to finish building all the presents that Santa needs. You need to help Santa work out how to fix the broken machine so that he can build the presents and deliver them before Christmas is ruined for everyone.

Inside the broken machine, there were five toy production units (TPUs) installed at sockets labelled A to E. During the malfunction, these TPUs were so heavily damaged that Santa is unable to identify which TPU they were when trying to fix the machine. The company that supplies TPUs builds 10 different units, numbered from 0 to 9. You need to work out which of the 10 TPUs needs to be installed in each of the machine's sockets, so that Santa can fix the machine. It may be that two or more of the TPUs are the same.

You can attempt to fix the machine here.

It's nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened: an evil Christmas-hater has set three drones loose above Santa's stables. As long as the drones are flying around, Santa is unable to take off to deliver presents to children all over the world. You need to help Santa by destroying the drones so that he can deliver presents before Christmas is ruined for everyone.

Each of the three drones was programmed with four integers between 1 and 20 (inclusive): the first two of these are the drone's starting position; the last two give the drone's daily speed. The drones have divided the sky above Santa's stables into a 20 by 20 grid. On 1 December, the drones will be at their starting position. Each day, every drone will add the first number in their daily speed to their horizontal position, and the second number to their vertical position. If the drone's position in either direction becomes greater than 20, the drone will subtract 20 from their position in that direction. Midnight in Santa's special Advent timezone is at 5am GMT, and so the day will change and the drones will all move at 5am GMT. For example, if a drone's starting position was (1, 12) and its movement was (5, 7), then:

You need to calculate each drone's starting position and daily speed, then work out where the drone currently is so you can shoot it down.

You can attempt to shoot down the drones here.

It's nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened: a saboteur has infiltrated the stables where Santa's reindeer are kept, and has caused all three of Santa's test flights to be unsuccessful. You need to help Santa have a successful test flight so that he can deliver presents before Christmas is ruined for everyone.

In order to have enough magical power to fly with the sleigh, all nine of Santa's reindeer must be fed their favourite food. The saboteur gave one or more reindeer the wrong food before each of the three test flights, causing the reindeer to be unable to take off.

In each clue, "before test flight n" means "immediately before test flight n". Before each test flight, each reindeer was fed exactly one food, and two or more reindeer may have been fed the same food. Two or more reindeer may have the same favourite food. You must use these clues to work out what each reindeer's favourite food is, then complete a test flight by feeding each reindeer the correct food.

You can attempt a test flight here.

It's nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened: you've just landed in a town in the Arctic circle with a massive bag of letters for Santa, but you've lost to instructions for how to get to Santa's house near the north pole. You need to work out where he lives and deliver the letters to him before Christmas is ruined for everyone.

Due to magnetic compasses being hard to use near the north pole, you brought with you a special Advent compass. This compass has nine numbered directions. Santa has given the residents of the town clues about a sequence of directions that will lead to his house; but in order to keep his location secret from present thieves, he gave each resident two clues: one clue is true, and one clue is false.

Here are the clues:

You can view the map here.

It's nearly Christmas and something terrible has happened: while out on a test flight, Santa's sled was damaged and Santa, Rudolph and Blitzen fell to the ground over the Advent Isles. You need to find Santa and his reindeer before Christmas is ruined for everyone.

You have gathered one inhabitant of the four largest Advent Isles—Rum, Land, Moon and County—and they are going to give you a series of clues about where Santa and his reindeer landed. However, one or more of the islanders you have gathered may have been involved in damaging Santa's sled and causing it to crash: any islander involved in this will lie to you to attempt to stop you from finding Santa and his reindeer. Once you are ready to search for Santa, Rudolph and Blitzen, you can find the map by following this link.

Each of the clues will be about Santa's, Rudolph's or Blitzen's positions in Advent Standard Coordinates (ASC): ASC are given by six two-digit numbers with dots inbetween, for example 12.52.12.13.84.55. For this example coordinate, the islanders will refer to (the first) 12 as the first coordinate, 52 as the second coordinate, (the second) 12 as the third coordinate, 13 as the fourth coordinate, 84 as the fifth coordinate, and 55 as the sixth coordinate.

Here are the clues:

To find a point's ASC coordinates, split a map of the islands into a 9×9 grid, then number the rows and columns 1 to 9: the first two digits of ASC give the vertical then horizontal position of a square in this grid. The next two digits then give a smaller square when this square is then itself split into a 9×9 grid, and so on. An example is show below.

You can view the map here.

Noel's grandchildren were in born in November in consecutive years. Each year for Christmas, Noel gives each of his grandchildren their age in pounds.

Last year, Noel gave his grandchildren a total of £208. How much will he give them in total this year?