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All FestiveHelper tools
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Secret Santa Generator
Draw names online with exclusions, a budget and one-at-a-time reveals.
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Christmas Countdown
Live days, hours, minutes and seconds until December 25.
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New Year Countdown
Count down to midnight on January 1 in your own time zone.
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Valentine's Countdown
How long until February 14? Plan the date night in good time.
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Thanksgiving Countdown
Switch between the US and Canadian dates, worked out automatically.
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Gift Budget Calculator
Track what you plan to spend per person and stay inside your budget.
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Turkey Cooking Time Calculator
Roasting and thawing times in pounds or kilos, stuffed or unstuffed.
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Christmas Lights Calculator
How many lights your tree needs, in feet or meters.
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Black Friday Discount Calculator
Stack a coupon on a sale price and see what you really pay.
Holidays coming up
Worked out from the calendar rules, not from a fixed list, so this table is right in any year.
| Holiday | Date | Time away |
|---|---|---|
| Loading upcoming holidays… | ||
Holiday tools that never go out of date
Most holiday countdown pages are written for a single year and quietly go wrong the following January. FestiveHelper works differently. Every date on this site is calculated in your browser from the actual calendar rule: US Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, Canadian Thanksgiving is the second Monday of October, Black Friday is the day after US Thanksgiving, and Easter follows the lunar rule used since the Gregorian reform. Nothing is hardcoded, so the same page is still correct years from now.
The countdowns read the clock on your own device, which means they are right whether you are in Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Dublin, Berlin or Sydney. There is no country selector to get wrong and no server involved.
Built for the whole holiday season
The season starts earlier than most people plan for. Canadian Thanksgiving lands in mid October, Halloween follows at the end of the month, and US Thanksgiving and Black Friday arrive in late November, which is when the shopping, the cooking and the gift exchanges all begin at once. FestiveHelper covers that whole stretch through to New Year and on to Valentine’s Day in February.
The Secret Santa generator handles the awkward part of a gift exchange properly: it never matches anybody with themselves, and it lets you keep couples apart without breaking the draw. The gift budget calculator keeps the running total honest. The turkey cooking time calculator covers roasting, resting and the days of thawing people forget. The Black Friday discount calculator shows what a coupon stacked on a sale price really saves, which is almost never the two percentages added together.
Free, private and quick
There are no accounts, no email addresses to hand over and no names to upload. Every calculation happens on your own device, so your gift list and your Secret Santa draw never leave it. The pages are plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no frameworks and no third-party trackers, which is why they load quickly on a phone with a poor signal in a crowded shop.
Prices can be shown in US dollars, British pounds or euros, and weights and measures work in both pounds and kilograms, feet and meters, Fahrenheit and Celsius.
Frequently asked questions
Are the tools on FestiveHelper free?
Yes, every tool is free to use with no account, no sign-up and no email address required. The site is supported by advertising.
Will these countdowns still be accurate next year?
Yes. Every holiday date is calculated from its calendar rule when the page loads, rather than stored as a fixed date, so the countdowns roll forward on their own and stay correct in future years.
Do you store the names or amounts I type in?
No. All of the calculations run in your browser and nothing is sent to a server. Your only settings saved on your device are your currency choice and your cookie preference.
Which countries do the tools work for?
The site is written for visitors in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and Europe. Countdowns use your own time zone, prices can be shown in dollars, pounds or euros, and the Thanksgiving countdown covers both the US and Canadian dates.
Do I need to install anything?
No. Everything runs in a normal web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. JavaScript needs to be switched on, because that is what performs the calculations.