This example will show you how to calculate the number of days between now and christmas.

Step1:

• In a cell A1 in a new workbook, press: CTRL + ;
• That will put today's date in the cell

Step2:

• In cell A2 type: 25/dec
• Excel will correctly guess the year

Step3:

• In cell A3 type: =A2-A1

Step4:

• Press CTRL + SHIFT + # to format the cell as a number
• So from today, there are 6 days until Christmas

Example File

Festive greetings !

Nick

Training Video on Calculating the difference between 2 dates: