How the countdowns count
These rules apply to every holiday and season clock on this site.
The finish line is midnight where you are. A clock reaches zero at 12:00 AM on the holiday, read from your device’s clock and time zone, which the page names under the clock. New York gets there 3 hours before Los Angeles. Season clocks stop at the midnight that opens the local date of the equinox or solstice, and print the exact moment underneath.
Two kinds of “days” appear on each page. The example column is the Christmas count at 6:00 PM on December 20:
| Figure | Counts | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Big number (days to go) | Midnights still to pass | 5 days (5 sleeps) |
| Clock (time left until 12:00 AM) | Full 24-hour periods, then hours, minutes and seconds | 4 days, 6 hours |
The two agree only at the stroke of midnight. A date-based question such as “how many days until Christmas” means the big number.
Clock changes are counted as they happen. The night daylight saving time ends has 25 hours, and the night it starts has 23, so “Hours to go” gains or loses an hour across those dates. The bar under each clock fills as the wait goes on, from the holiday’s last occurrence to its next.
Some pages add figures for their own holiday. “Weekends to go” counts the Saturdays after today and before the holiday. “Business days to go” counts Monday through Friday over the same span, minus the 11 U.S. federal holidays on the days they are observed, the same rule the site’s calculation methods use everywhere.
On the day itself, the clock gives way to a message that the holiday is today. At the next midnight it starts counting to the following year’s date. Each count is only as exact as your device’s clock; the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the official time at time.gov.
Holiday dates and rules
Seven of these holidays keep a fixed date and nine move every year. Seven are legal public holidays under 5 U.S.C. 6103.
| Holiday | Date rule | Earliest and latest date | Federal holiday |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Year’s Day | January 1 | Always January 1 | Yes |
| Valentine’s Day | February 14 | Always February 14 | No |
| Mardi Gras | 47 days before Easter | February 3 to March 9 | No |
| St. Patrick’s Day | March 17 | Always March 17 | No |
| Easter Sunday | First Sunday after the church full moon on or after March 21 | March 22 to April 25 | No |
| Mother’s Day | Second Sunday of May | May 8 to May 14 | No |
| Memorial Day | Last Monday of May | May 25 to May 31 | Yes |
| Father’s Day | Third Sunday of June | June 15 to June 21 | No |
| Juneteenth | June 19 | Always June 19 | Yes |
| 4th of July | July 4 | Always July 4 | Yes |
| Labor Day | First Monday of September | September 1 to September 7 | Yes |
| Halloween | October 31 | Always October 31 | No |
| Thanksgiving Day | Fourth Thursday of November | November 22 to November 28 | Yes |
| Black Friday | Day after Thanksgiving | November 23 to November 29 | No |
| Hanukkah (first candle) | Evening before 25 Kislev on the Hebrew calendar | November 27 to December 26 | No |
| Christmas Day | December 25 | Always December 25 | Yes |
A federal holiday on a Saturday gives most federal employees the Friday before it off, and one on a Sunday gives them the Monday after. Memorial Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving always land on a weekday, so they never shift.
When does each season start?
Season countdowns end on the day of an equinox or solstice, the astronomical start of spring, summer, fall and winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
| Season | Starts at | Date in Eastern Time, 2001 to 2099 |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | March equinox | March 19 or 20 |
| Summer | June solstice | June 20 or 21 |
| Fall | September equinox | September 21, 22 or 23 |
| Winter | December solstice | December 20, 21 or 22 |
The moment is one instant worldwide, so the local date depends on the zone. Guam, at UTC+10, often sees an equinox or solstice a calendar day later than the mainland. The dates drift because the seasons repeat every 365.24 days or so, while the calendar runs 365 days and adds February 29 every fourth year. Each year the moment comes nearly 6 hours later on the clock, until a leap day pulls it back.
Meteorologists use whole months instead: spring from March 1, summer from June 1, fall from September 1 and winter from December 1. Weather records compare more easily that way.
Equinox and solstice times on these pages are calculated with Jean Meeus’ Astronomical Algorithms (chapter 27) and rounded to the nearest minute. They agree with NASA JPL Horizons within 1 minute; published almanacs can differ by a minute.
Count down to another date
For a trip, a deadline or an event that is not on this list, the days until a date calculator gives the same count. The birthday countdown handles February 29 birthdays, and the days left in the year page counts down to December 31.
Sources: U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Federal Holidays; NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Meteorological Versus Astronomical Seasons; NIST, time.gov. Easter rule: Book of Common Prayer tables. Checked October 22, 2026.