ptools.io

How Many Days Until Thanksgiving?

Down to the second, counting to the fourth Thursday of November.

Runs entirely in your browser

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Or pick one

The count above runs to 00:00 on Thanksgiving in your own time zone. In the United States that is the fourth Thursday of November, so it falls somewhere between the 22nd and the 28th, and the page works out which one from the calendar rather than from a list that would need updating.

The date moves because the rule names a weekday, not a day of the month. It has been the fourth Thursday since 1941, when Congress fixed it there, after Franklin Roosevelt had moved it a week earlier to lengthen the shopping season and left the country celebrating on two different Thursdays. The rule has held since, which is what lets this page count to any future Thanksgiving without being told the date.

Canada's Thanksgiving is a different day, the second Monday of October, and has usually passed by the time this question gets asked in the United States. This page counts to the American one. Black Friday is the day after; to count to that, put its date in the box, or use the countdown.

How to use it

  1. Read the count at the top: days, hours, minutes and seconds, moving as you watch.
  2. Look below it for the same span as whole days, weeks and working days.
  3. Change the date in the box to count down to anything else instead.

Questions

When is Thanksgiving?

In the United States, the fourth Thursday of November, so between 22 and 28 November depending on the year. The date the page is counting to is written under the clock. In Canada it is the second Monday of October instead.

Why does the date change every year?

Because the rule names a weekday and a week rather than a date. The fourth Thursday of November falls on a different day of the month each year, and the count finds it from the calendar, so it is right for every year without anyone updating it.

Does the working days figure count the Friday after?

It counts Monday to Friday from tomorrow up to and including Thanksgiving, so the Friday after is outside it. Public holidays inside the span are not subtracted, since which ones apply depends on where you work.

Which time zone is this counting in?

Yours, the one your device is set to. The target is midnight at the start of the day in your own local time, because that is when the day arrives where you are. A holiday reaches Kiribati about a day before it reaches Hawaii, and each of them sees their own count here rather than anybody else's.

Does it keep counting while I leave the tab open?

Yes, it ticks once a second for as long as the page is open, and picks the count back up from the clock when you return to the tab. Nothing is stored between visits, so opening it again simply asks your clock what time it is now.

Is any of this sent anywhere?

No. The arithmetic runs in WebAssembly inside this tab, and the only thing it reads is your device clock. There is no account, no cookie of ours and no record of what you looked up. Load the page once and it keeps working with the network off.

The same question, other days

Each of these counts to the start of its own day, in your time zone, with the same live seconds and the same working days figure.

Your data stays on your device

Everything above runs inside your browser as WebAssembly compiled from Rust. Nothing you type is uploaded, logged or stored on a server. You can load this page once, go offline, and it still works.

This page makes no requests at all, to anywhere. That is not a promise in the copy: it is a Content-Security-Policy header your browser enforces, and connect-src on it is none. Open the network tab and watch nothing happen.