“Shopping days until Christmas”

Many newspaper articles and advertisements count down the number of “shopping days until/‘til/till Christmas/Xmas.” The “shopping days till Christmas” ads date to at least December 1890 in the Baltimore (MD) Sun.
   
There are now Christmas countdown clocks on the Internet to show how many days, hours, minutes and seconds of shopping days are left.
 
     
19 December 1890, Baltimore (MD) Sun, pg. 2 ad:
There are only 5 more shopping days till Christmas.
   
19 December 1893, St. Louis (MO) Republic, pg. 4, col. 5 ad:
ONLY 5 MORE SHOPPING DAYS
Until Christmas, and it is morally certain that if you do not shop in the mornings you cannot get in sideways.
(Famous—ed.)
 
2 December 1896, Portsmouth (OH) Daily Times, pg. 5, col. 4 ad:
Only Twenty Shopping Days Until Christmas.
(Wingard Bros.—ed.)
 
20 December 1896, Birmingham (AL) State Herald, pt. 2, pg. 9 ad:
Only four more shopping days until Christmas. Don’t wait to the last minute. Come early. Avoid the jam.
Loveman, Joseph & Loeb.
 
11 December 1898, Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, AR), pg. 8 ad:
Only Twelve More Shopping Days till Christmas.
(Joe P. Quinn Dry Goods Co.—ed.)
 
7 December 1905, Baltimore (MD) Sun, pg. 6 ad:
ONLY 15 SHOPPING DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS
 
Google News Archive
11 December 1907, Youngstown (OH) Vindicator, pg. 2, col. 1 ad:
11 More Shopping Days till Christmas
(The Fordyce-Osborne Company—ed.)