Christmas Day falls on …. Here's the live count:
Counting down to something else? Build your own with the countdown timer, or browse all holiday countdowns.
Christmas Day is December 25 — every year, on the same date. Unlike Easter or Thanksgiving, it never moves, which makes it the easiest holiday of all to count down to: the only thing that changes is which day of the week it lands on. The countdown above targets the next December 25 from today. Once Christmas Day has passed, the page rolls over automatically and starts counting toward the following year's Christmas, so the number you see is never out of date.
Christians in Rome were celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25 by the fourth century, and the date spread from there through most of the Western church. Why that particular day was chosen is still debated by historians — it sits close to the winter solstice and to Roman festivals held at the same season, and early writers also connected it to calculations about the date of the Annunciation in March. Not everyone observes December 25: many Orthodox churches keep Christmas on January 7, because their calendar (the older Julian calendar) currently runs 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar used in most of the world. This page counts down to December 25.
Knowing the exact number of days left is genuinely useful in December's run-up. Postal carriers publish "last posting dates" in mid-December, flights and trains fill up for the days around the 25th, and grocery delivery slots vanish in the final week. Checking the count in October or November — when there are still 60-plus days in hand — is the difference between a calm season and a panicked one.
Is Christmas always on December 25? In the Gregorian calendar used by most of the world, yes. The exceptions are traditions following the Julian calendar, where the celebration currently falls on January 7.
What time does the countdown end? At midnight at the very start of December 25, in your own timezone. For the whole of Christmas Day the page shows an "It's today!" message instead of a count, then starts on next year's date the day after.
How many days until Christmas right now? The big number at the top of this page — it's the count of whole days between today and December 25, updated every second along with the clock beneath it.