Free Christmas tools
Christmas Tools
Small, useful tools for the festive season. Plan your gifts, pick a film, tick off the shopping list or learn a tradition you have not seen before. No sign-up, no clutter.
There are two kinds of tool here. The countdowns calculate live dates and times from your device timezone. The planners and pickers are interactive pages that help you decide something. All of them are free, none of them need an account, and only the checklist saves anything, on your own device.
Countdowns and calculators
Each of these calculates from the current moment in your device timezone and updates while the page is open.
- Christmas countdown
Days, hours, minutes and seconds until December 25 in your timezone.
- Christmas Eve countdown
The same countdown pointed at the evening of December 24.
- Sleeps until Christmas
Nights left rather than days, which is the version children understand.
- Weeks until Christmas
Whole weeks and remaining weekends, useful for planning rather than excitement.
- Months until Christmas
Full calendar months plus remaining days, for planning rather than counting sleeps.
- Shopping days until Christmas
How many realistic shopping days are left before December 25.
- Advent countdown
When Advent begins and how long is left until Christmas Day.
- Countdown for kids
A simpler, friendlier countdown page to open with children.
Planners, pickers and explorers
Interactive pages that help you decide or organise something. They ask a few questions or give you something to work through, then get out of the way.
Christmas Quiz
Find your Christmas personality with a short, friendly quiz.
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Gift Finder
Filter gift ideas by recipient, budget and style in seconds.
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Christmas Checklist
Tick off gifts, food and decor. Your progress is saved on your device.
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Advent Calendar
Open a small festive prompt for each day from December 1 to 24.
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Christmas Facts
A random fact generator and a long list of real, sourced trivia.
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Movie Picker
Pick a Christmas film by mood, with snack and activity pairings.
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Traditions Explorer
Browse Christmas customs, foods and gift-givers country by country.
Open toolHow to get the most out of the tools
Each tool is built to do one job in under a minute. The quiz, gift finder and movie picker ask a small set of questions and hand you a result. The advent calendar and traditions explorer are things to browse a day or a country at a time. The checklist is the only tool that remembers anything: your ticks are stored in your own browser, so they survive a refresh on the same device but do not follow you anywhere else. None of the tools ask for an email to work.
- Not sure what to do first? Follow the Christmas planning timeline and see when to start Christmas shopping.
- Planning a family Christmas? Start with the checklist, then use the gift finder.
- Hosting friends? The quiz and movie picker double as easy party openers.
- Learning with kids? Pair the advent calendar with the traditions explorer for a country a day in December.
Trusted external Christmas tools
A few free, official services we recommend alongside the tools on this page. All of them are run by well known organisations and have been around for years.
- NORAD Tracks Santa
Live Santa tracker run by the North American Aerospace Defense Command since 1955.
- Google Santa Tracker
Interactive map plus 24 days of games, coding puzzles and short learning videos.
- USPS Operation Santa
Adopt and answer real letters to Santa from families across the United States.
- Royal Mail letters to Santa
Free address for UK children to write to Father Christmas and get a reply.
- Canada Post: Write to Santa
Long running Santa letter programme run by Canada Post, with replies in English and French.
- timeanddate.com calendars
Reliable reference for holiday dates, sunset times and Christmas Eve schedules worldwide.