Holiday Countdown Calculator
See exactly how many days remain until major holidays, calculated from today's date on your device.
How the day counts are worked out
Both dates are flattened to local midnight before subtracting, so the answer is whole days and never a fraction:
days = round((midnight of holiday - midnight of today) / 86,400,000 ms)
if days < 0, the same date in the following year is used insteadFour of the five holidays are fixed - 31 October, 25 December, 1 January and 14 February. Thanksgiving is computed: the page finds the first Thursday in November, adds 21 days, and lands on the fourth Thursday, which always falls between the 22nd and the 28th. Rounding rather than truncating is what keeps the count right across the clock changes, when a local day is 23 or 25 hours long.
Reading it as a savings pace
The days remaining are the denominator of your holiday budget. A $600 plan costs very different amounts depending on when you start:
| Days left | Weeks | Per week for $600 |
|---|---|---|
| 120 | 17.1 | $35 |
| 90 | 12.9 | $47 |
| 60 | 8.6 | $70 |
| 30 | 4.3 | $140 |
The curve is steep at the end: waiting from 120 days out to 60 does not double the weekly figure once, it doubles it and then doubles it again by the time you reach 30 days. Anything you cannot fund at that pace goes on a card.
Frequently asked questions
How many days until Christmas?
The Christmas row answers it from today's date on your device. It reads 0 on 25 December itself, then jumps to 365 on Boxing Day - or 366 when a 29 February sits in between.
What date is Thanksgiving?
The fourth Thursday of November in the United States, so somewhere between 22 and 28 November. The page works it out for the current year rather than reading it from a list, which is why it stays right in future years.
Why is a holiday showing hundreds of days?
Because it has already gone this year. Once a date is behind you the countdown rolls to the same date next year, which is why Halloween reads around 330 days in early December.