How many days until St Nicholas' Day?

St Nicholas' Day falls on 6 December, and honesty requires stating plainly that it is not observed in the United Arab Emirates. It is a Central and Northern European custom — Polish, German, Dutch, Czech — in which small gifts appear overnight in shoes or by the bed, and it has no presence in the Emirati calendar, in the school year, or in the retail season.

The countdown exists because the date is part of the site's common set across countries, and because there is a European population here for whom it still means something. Where it happens in the Emirates it happens privately or inside a language school or community association, on a date that the country around it is treating as an ordinary working day.

The date does sit in an interesting position locally, though: 6 December falls immediately after the National Day break on the 2nd and 3rd, so it lands in the week when much of the country is still returning to a normal schedule and the flags are still up along every major road. In the Netherlands the equivalent evening is 5 December rather than the 6th, which is worth knowing if you are counting on behalf of a Dutch household.

The countdown runs to the start of 6 December and rolls over to the following year afterwards.