How many days until Christmas?
A live countdown to the next Christmas Day. It always targets the next 25 December from today, so the day after Christmas it simply starts counting to the following one.
Live countdown
How this date is worked out
Christmas Day is fixed: 25 December in the Gregorian calendar, every year, in every country that observes it. The countdown above resolves "the next 25 December on or after today" each time the page loads, which is why it is still accurate years from now with no maintenance. Once 25 December is over, the target rolls forward automatically — even if you leave this tab open through the night.
Throughout Christmas Day itself the counter does not go negative. It switches to an "it is here" state and shows the time remaining in the day, then resets at midnight.
Why 25 December?
The Gospels give no date for the Nativity, and the earliest Christians did not mark it at all. The first surviving record of a 25 December observance is in the Chronography of AD 354, a Roman almanac. Two explanations compete, and they are not mutually exclusive. One is calendrical: an early tradition placed the Annunciation on 25 March, the spring equinox in the Roman reckoning, and nine months later is 25 December. The other is cultural: the date sat close to the winter solstice and to the Roman festival of Sol Invictus, established in AD 274, giving an existing midwinter celebration a new meaning.
Not everyone counts to the same day. Churches that still use the Julian calendar for fixed feasts — among them the Russian, Serbian and Georgian Orthodox churches — keep Christmas on their 25 December, which currently corresponds to 7 January in the Gregorian calendar. That gap widens by one day roughly every 128 years. Armenian churches traditionally observe the Nativity on 6 January, together with Epiphany.
The rest of the season
- Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, so it can start anywhere from 27 November to 3 December. Unlike Christmas itself, it is a moving date.
- Christmas Eve, 24 December, is the main celebration in much of northern and central Europe and in Latin America, where gifts are opened in the evening rather than on the morning of the 25th.
- Boxing Day or St Stephen's Day, 26 December, is a public holiday in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of the Commonwealth, but not in the United States.
- The twelve days of Christmas run from 25 December to 5 January, ending on Twelfth Night, with Epiphany on 6 January — the traditional gift day in Spain and much of Latin America.
The weekday drift
Because 365 divided by 7 leaves a remainder of one, Christmas falls one weekday later each year — and two later when the intervening February has 29 days. Over a 28-year cycle it visits every day of the week. That drift is why the length of the holiday break varies so much: a Christmas on a Tuesday or a Wednesday strands a working day or two in the middle of the week, while a Christmas on a Thursday or a Friday tends to produce a long weekend. The table below shows the pattern for the years ahead.
The next six Christmases
Computed in your browser from today’s date, not typed into the page:
| Year | Date | Day of the week | Days from today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calculating… | |||
Questions people ask
Does this countdown need updating each year?
No. It contains no year at all. Each time the page loads it computes the next 25 December from your device’s current date, and while the page is open it rolls over by itself at midnight on 26 December. It will be just as correct in 2035 as it is today.
Why does it show zero days all through Christmas Day?
Because "days until" counts whole calendar days, and once the day has begun there are none left to count. Rather than showing a negative number, the page switches to an "it is here" message and displays the time remaining in the day. At midnight it starts counting to the following Christmas.
How many days until Christmas from today exactly?
The clock at the top of the page is the answer, calculated from your device clock and time zone. The plain-language line underneath it also gives the figure in weeks and in months, using the month rule explained on the homepage.
What about Orthodox Christmas?
Churches using the Julian calendar for fixed feasts currently celebrate on 7 January in Gregorian terms. This page counts to the Gregorian 25 December. For the Julian date, use the custom countdown with 7 January as the target.
Which time zone does the countdown use?
Your own. It reaches zero at midnight where your device is, so someone in Sydney sees it hit Christmas well before someone in Los Angeles — which is exactly how Christmas actually works.
Count down to something else
Every page below works the same way and stays correct on its own. For a date of your own — a holiday, an exam, a due date, a launch — use the countdown and date difference calculator.