Question 1

How are the day counts calculated?

Accepted Answer

Each countdown takes today’s date from your device and counts the full days remaining until the holiday’s next occurrence. Today doesn’t count as a remaining day: if a holiday is tomorrow the counter shows 1, and on the day itself it shows “Today!”. Once a holiday passes, the counter rolls over to next year automatically.

Question 2

How do floating holidays like Thanksgiving get their dates?

Accepted Answer

Several US holidays are defined by a weekday rule instead of a fixed date: Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, Memorial Day the last Monday of May, Labor Day the first Monday of September, Mother’s Day the second Sunday of May and Father’s Day the third Sunday of June. This page computes each rule for the correct year, so the dates are always right.

Question 3

How is the date of Easter calculated?

Accepted Answer

Easter is the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after March 21, which puts it anywhere from March 22 to April 25. This page uses Gauss’s Easter algorithm — a purely arithmetic version of the church’s computus — which is exact for every year from 1900 to 2099.

Question 4

Which holiday is coming up next?

Accepted Answer

The grid above sorts itself with the nearest holiday first, so the top-left card is always the next one on the calendar. Each card links to a dedicated page with the full countdown, weeks breakdown and background on how that holiday’s date is determined.

Question 5

Can I count down to a date that isn’t a holiday?

Accepted Answer

Yes — use the days between dates calculator to count the days to any date you pick (a wedding, a due date, a trip), or the days from today calculator to go the other way and find what date it will be a given number of days from now.

Days Until Calculator ⏳

Fixed dates, floating dates and the computus

All holiday countdowns

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