Public Holiday Countdown Screensaver
The Public Holiday Countdown screensaver counts down to the next major real public holiday, from a curated calendar table. It is free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
Live preview
Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the Public Holiday Countdown screensaver works
The saver checks today's real date against a curated table of major public holidays.
A live countdown ticks down to the next real upcoming holiday on the list.
Once a holiday passes, the saver automatically advances to the next one.
The computation runs entirely in your browser — no network fetch is needed.
How holiday dates get decided
Public holidays follow different rules, and that is why a countdown needs a table of rules rather than a single formula. Some fall on a fixed date, such as 1 January or 25 December, while others are defined by a weekday pattern, such as the fourth Thursday of November for US Thanksgiving. Many are tied to a lunar or lunisolar calendar, so their Gregorian dates move each year.
Easter is the classic case: it falls on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, an ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March, a fixed approximation of the March equinox. Easter therefore lands between 22 March and 25 April inclusive. Related holidays such as Good Friday and Pentecost are counted from it. Dates such as Eid, Diwali and Lunar New Year likewise shift against the Gregorian calendar.
When a holiday falls on a weekend, some countries observe it on a nearby weekday, so the date a business closes can differ from the date of the holiday. The list here is a curated selection of major holidays, and regional or religious observances not on it will not count down. For local closures, the official government calendar is the reference.
A worked example
As one real holiday passes, the countdown automatically resets to tick down toward the next one on the curated calendar.
Settings & tips
- Accent recolours the countdown digits.
- Holidays reflect a real, curated major-holiday calendar.
- No internet connection is required — the lookup runs locally.
Frequently asked questions
- Which holidays are included?
- A curated set of major, widely observed real public holidays.
- Is a key needed?
- No — it uses a local, pre-loaded real calendar table.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
- Does it cover every country's holidays?
- No — it focuses on a curated set of widely recognized major holidays.
- Why does Easter move around?
- It is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, an ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March, so it can fall anywhere from 22 March to 25 April.
- What is an observed holiday?
- When a holiday lands on a weekend, some countries give the day off on a nearby weekday, which is called observing the holiday.
- Why are Eid and Diwali dates different each year?
- They follow lunar or lunisolar calendars, which do not line up with the Gregorian year, so the dates shift against it.