HOW MANY DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS?

Unlike Easter or Thanksgiving, Christmas is a fixed-date holiday: it lands on December 25 every year, so only the weekday changes. That weekday matters in the U.S. — when December 25 falls on a Saturday, the federal holiday is usually observed on Friday the 24th; when it falls on a Sunday, it's observed on Monday the 26th. Banks, markets, and post offices follow the observed date, not the calendar date.

If your countdown includes gifts arriving by mail, subtract shipping time. U.S. carriers (USPS, UPS, FedEx) publish holiday shipping cutoffs each year, typically in mid-December for standard ground service — and those dates move up every year as volume grows. A safe rule of thumb: treat roughly two weeks before Christmas as your "order by" date for anything shipped standard, and check the carriers' published deadlines for the current year before relying on express options.

American households routinely spend several hundred to over a thousand dollars on holiday gifts, travel, and food. Divide your target budget by the number of days left on this page and you get your daily "Christmas savings rate" — often just a few dollars a day if you start early. Parking that money in a high-yield savings account means it even earns interest while it waits. Try our free savings calculator to see what your holiday fund earns.

Christmas is easy to remember — it's the birthdays and anniversaries in between that sneak up. Our free special-day reminder tool creates a recurring event in your own calendar (Google Calendar or iCal file) with the lead time you choose. Nothing is stored on our servers, and no sign-up is needed.