For the months, Kens question, "why do you need an algorithmic
approach?" made me realize I didn't. Instead I just made 12 static
<choose> parts, one for each month. Like this:

<xsl:template match="@month">
        <xsl:variable name="month">
                <xsl:value-of select="."/>
        </xsl:variable>

                <xsl:choose>
                        <xsl:when test="$month='januari'">
                                <option value="januari" selected="selected">
                                        januari
                                </option>
                        </xsl:when>
                        <xsl:otherwise>
                                <option value="januari">
                                        januari
                                </option>
                        </xsl:otherwise>
                </xsl:choose>

<!-- and so on -->
</xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="@month">
    <option value="januari">
      <xsl:if test="@month='januari'>
        <xsl:attribute name="selected">selected</xsl:attribute>
      </xsl:if>
      <xsl:text>januari</xsl:text>
    </option>
    ...
  </xsl:template>

The solution for the days and years was indeed to use recursive template calls.

The code for this is found below, if anybody happens upon this thread
and is interested in how I solved it.

<xsl:template name="incrementValue">
        <xsl:param name="value"/>
        <xsl:param name="invar"/>
        <xsl:param name="stop"/>
        <option value="{$value}">
           <xsl:if test="$value=$invar">
              <xsl:attribute name="selected">selected</xsl:attribute>
            <xsl:value-of select="$value"/>
        </option>
        <xsl:if test="$value &lt; $stop">
          <xsl:call-template name="incrementValue">
                <xsl:with-param name="value" select="$value + 1"/>
                <xsl:with-param name="invar" select="$invar"/>
                <xsl:with-param name="stop" select="$stop"/>
          </xsl:call-template>
        </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

--
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