The 5 best Christmas countdown widgets for your website

Let's face it, Christmas is all about good, cheesy fun – and there's nothing cheesier than adding a nice little seasonal countdown to your website or blog. Whether you view it as an exercise in post-situationist irony or just plain fun, these Christmas countdown widgets are a quick and easy way to bring the yuletide spirit to your site. Make sure you also grab your free festival wallpaper.

01. Santa's Christmas Countdown Widget for WordPress

Christmas countdown widgets:

This Christmas countdown widget just keeps on giving

One of the most popular Christmas countdown widgets for WordPress, this adds a cute, Santa Claus-inspired countdown to the sidebar of your site. When the big day itself arrives, the widget displays a 'Merry Christmas' greeting to your visitors. It then starts the countdown for next year's Christmas on the following day.

02. Christmas Countdown Clock

Christmas countdown widgets: Christmas Countdown Clock

The Christmas Countdown Clock offers a variety of designs to choose from

Another WordPress plugin, this Christmas countdown widget generates a clock showing the days and hours until December 25, and lets you select from several designs, sizes, animations and backgrounds. The full range of designs can be seen here.

03. Counting down to the holidays

Christmas countdown widgets: Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha has the answer to the most pressing Christmas question

One of the more unusual Christmas countdown widgets comes from WolframAlpha, a search engine that focuses on answers to actual questions. As such it offers website builders this simple widget, which includes a countdown to Thanksgiving, Chanukkah, Al-Hijra, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve.

04. WordPress countdown clock plugin

Christmas countdown widgets: WordPress countdown clock plugin

Choose from pre-set events or create your own

For WordPress blogs, this Christmas countdown widget displays a Flash countdown clock on your sidebar. You can either choose from set events – which include Christmas and New Year – or generate your own custom event.

05. Widdlytinks

Christmas countdown widgets:

There are 9 Christmas countdown widgets to choose from in this selection

WiddlyTinks makes customizable widgets for pregnant women, new mothers, brides to be and for many other special occasions and events. And it's got a great selection of animated Christmas countdown widgets for you to embed in your HTML.

Have you spotted any Christmas countdown widgets we should know about? Let us know in the comments!

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Tom May

Tom May is an award-winning journalist and editor specialising in design, photography and technology. Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. Today, he is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq and its sister sites Digital Camera World, T3.com and Tech Radar. He also writes for Creative Boom and works on content marketing projects.