Different php include by date

I want to have a different include on a page according to the user's choice and if there is no choice, the date. The part with cookies to change the inclided php works, but the page is totally ignoring the date. I want it to be in that order, first considering if the user has made a choice and then if not, it will assign an include depending on the date. The choices are in order, I want the code to stop once it finds a choice that fits and just go with that, so I used "if else", as there can be more than one choice that is true, thus I thought it might not work with "switch case". Here's what I have, the cookies work, but the lines dealing with the date are ignored. I tried putting the day in a variable, but it didn't make a difference.

 
<?php

$thedays = date(d);

if ($_COOKIE["confetti"] == "ver1") { include("axel7.php"); }

else if ($_COOKIE["confetti"] == "ver2") { include("yuki7.php"); }

else if ($_COOKIE["confetti"] == "ver3") { include("zel7.php"); }

else if ($_COOKIE["confetti"] == "ver4") { include("yug3.php"); }

else if ($thedays <= 7) { include("yug3.php"); }

else if (($thedays >= 8) && ($thedays <= 14 )) { include("axel7.php"); }

else if (($thedays >= 15) && ($thedays <= 21)) { include("yuki7.php"); }

else if ($thedays >= 22) { include("zel7.php"); }

else { include("axel7.php"); }

?>