Screen Soft Light / Timekeeping / CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN
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Counts to local midnight. Press F or double-click for fullscreen.

No. 001 · CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN

Christmas countdown — days, hours and sleeps until Christmas

  • 01 Counts to your local midnight
  • 02 String lights that speed up near zero
  • 03 Fullscreen for the TV

A live countdown to the first minute of Christmas Day where you are. The string lights along the top twinkle slowly in December, quicken on Christmas Eve and race in the final minute, and the screen lights up when the moment arrives.

Other countdowns —
New Year countdownFireplaceCandle light
§ 01

Sleeps, not just days

Children count to Christmas in sleeps, so the countdown shows those as well: the number of nights left before Christmas morning. Sleeps follow the calendar rather than the clock, so at 11 pm on the 23rd it is still two sleeps, even though Christmas is barely a day away.

§ 02

The row of bulbs along the top changes pace as Christmas gets closer: a slow, uneven twinkle for most of the month, a brisker sparkle in the last 24 hours, a chase in the final minute and every bulb on at once when the clock strikes twelve.

Lights that know how close it is

The row of bulbs along the top changes pace as Christmas gets closer: a slow, uneven twinkle for most of the month, a brisker sparkle in the last 24 hours, a chase in the final minute and every bulb on at once when the clock strikes twelve. You can tell roughly how near it is from across the room without reading the digits.

§ 03

On Christmas Day

The page does not roll over to next year at midnight. It shows Merry Christmas for the whole of 25 December, then begins counting to next Christmas on the 26th.

Procedure

Three moves to peak output

  1. 01

    Check the count

    Days, hours, minutes and seconds to midnight on 25 December, plus how many sleeps are left.

  2. 02

    Put it on a big screen

    Press Fullscreen (or F) on a laptop, tablet or TV browser so the whole room can see it.

  3. 03

    Add the music

    Tick Christmas music for Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Deck the Halls on a music box with sleigh bells. Untick it any time.

Inquiries

Questions worth asking

Q.01 When does the Christmas countdown hit zero?
At 00:00 on 25 December, local time on the device showing the page.
Q.02 Whose midnight does it count to?
Yours. The countdown reads the clock and time zone of the device it is open on, so a screen in London and one in Sydney each hit zero at their own local midnight. The time zone in use is shown under the controls.
Q.03 Can I put it on a TV?
Yes. Open the page in the TV's browser, or on a laptop connected by HDMI or screen casting, and press Fullscreen. On browsers that support it the page also asks the screen to stay on while it is fullscreen.
Q.04 What does the preview button do?
It runs the last ten seconds and the celebration straight away, so you can check the picture and the chime on your TV before the real moment. The real countdown carries on in the background and the page returns to it afterwards.
Cross-reference

Try adjacent plates