Themis-Athena's Garden of Books

A big Thank You to everybody who joined the game and participated so actively: Collectively, we achieved a total score of

1105 POINTS

-- that's more than double last year's result!  Go us!!

Based on this score, each of your three hosts will make a donation of USD 100 to charity (we'll reveal which ones separately, but we've agreed that this year, again, our donations will go to reading programs).

It's been great fun watching the truly amazing things that everybody came up with to complete to the various tasks and the creativity that went into everybody's update posts, and we're truly happy this year's "Advent Calendar" format seems to have worked so well.

A special thank you, too, to everybody for reporting in and tallying up posts and for using the "24 festive tasks" tag; particular those of you who put together "final count / wrap-up" posts -- all of this was a great help in keeping track of the running score and compiling the final count.

And a general meaow / purr / woof / cluck / bzzz / [insert assorted other animal noises] to everybody's pets and, um, pet plants who helped making their humans' posts even more fun, lovable and creative!

The Figures:

Number of active participants: 29
("Active" = completed at least one book or other task for the game)
Average number of points collected: 38.10
Number of card blackouts: 9
("Blackout" = completed at least one book or other task per square)

Results by Squares / Holidays:

... or put differently:

(Because there has to be at least one bona fide pie chart in here, right?)

On a whopping total of 19 squares, one or more participants completed all five tasks (book and other tasks). Of these, the square with the highest number of participants (6) completing all five tasks was Penance Day, closely followed by Mawlid and Thanksgiving (5 participants each), with Melbourne Cup Day, Diwali and Festivus jointly coming in third (3 participants each).

Biggest overall point-earning square: Melbourne Cup Day -- 71 points total (including 14 bonus points)
Runners-up: Día de los Muertos and Penance Day -- 61 points each

Third Place: Guy Fawkes Night -- 58 points total

Excluding bonus points, Melbourne Cup Day comes in third at 57 points, on equal footing with Mawlid.

Least point-earning square: Advent -- 29 points total

Average points per square (including bonus points): 46.04

Average points per square (excluding bonus points): 45.17

Breakdown of Books and Tasks per Square

(right-click on the images for a larger view):

The Books

Square for which the highest number of participants read a book: Día de los Muertos -- 18 participants

Runner-up: Guy Fawkes Night -- 16 participants

Third Place: Solstice / Yuletide -- 15 participants

Fewest books read for: St. Lucia's Day -- 7 participants

Average number of book points accrued per square: 10.92

 The Tasks

Square with the overall highest number of points collected for all non-book tasks: Melbourne Cup Day -- 62 points (including 14 bonus points)

Runner-up: Penance Day -- 50 points

Third place: Thanksgiving -- 48 points

Excluding bonus points, Melbourne Cup Day comes in second, equal with Thanksgiving.  Third then are Diwali and Mawlid (44 points each). 

Least number of points: Advent -- 21 points

Most popular individual task: Melbourne Cup Day, Task 1 ("Pick your ponies") --  22 participants / 36 points

Runner-up, by points: St. Lucia's Day, Task 4 ("Gävle Goat") -- 20 points (including 7 bonus points)

Runner-up, by participants (= excluding bonus points): Día de los Muertos, Task 2 ("Favorite epitaph") -- 18 points

Third place: On equal footing: Guy Fawkes Day, Tasks 1 and 2 ("Burn a book in effigy" and "3 treasonous crimes against books"), Diwali, Task 4 ("Girls holding flowers / book covers"), and Winter Solstice / Yuletide, Task 1 ("Bibliomancy") -- 16 points each

Least popular: Advent, Task 4 ("Make your own Advent wreath"), St. Lucia's Day, Task 2 ("lussebulle / saffron dish"), and New Year's Eve, Task 4 ("Krapfen") -- all 0 points (sniff)

Bonus points collected -- total: 21

* Melbourne Cup Day, Task 1 ("Pick your ponies"): 14

* St. Lucia's Day, Task 4 ("Gävle Goat"): 7

Average number of points accrued for non-book tasks per square, including bonus points: 35.13

Average number of points accrued for non-book tasks per square, excluding bonus points: 34.25

Average number of points accrued for individual non-book tasks, including bonus points: 8.78

Average number of points accrued for individual non-book tasks, excluding bonus points: 8.56

Congratulations, everybody, and thank you all so much again for making this such a fun and successful game!