html - How to have one label for multiple select boxes?

Question

I have on this check in form:

<label>Check in date </label>
<select id="day">
  <option value="1">1</option>
  <option value="2">2</option>
  <option value="3">3</option>
  <option value="4">4</option>
</select> 
<select id="month">
  <option value="1">1</option>
  <option value="2">2</option>
  <option value="3">3</option>
  <option value="4">4</option>
</select> 
<select id="year">
  <option value="1">2012</option>
  <option value="2">2013</option>
</select> 

As you can see, the user will choose the month, the day and the year on different select boxes, however, only one label should exist for all three.

What would be the proper way to do this with HTML ?

Update: I'm concerned with the accessibility hit that we may have on developing something like the code above. I mean, a blind user should be able to listen each label in order to fill this form...

Answer 1

The problem with using one label for all three input boxes is that an non-sighted user is not going to know which of three boxes the focus is in because the same text will be read out in each case. There's a number of approaches possible. Maybe the safest is to have a label for each box, but hide those labels off to the left side of the viewport. Another possibility which ought to work, but I haven't tested would be this:

<fieldset>
    <legend>Check in date</legend>
    <select id="day" aria-label="day">
      <option value="1">1</option>
      <option value="2">2</option>
      <option value="3">3</option>
      <option value="4">4</option>
    </select> 
    <select id="month" aria-label="month">
      <option value="1">1</option>
      <option value="2">2</option>
      <option value="3">3</option>
      <option value="4">4</option>
    </select> 
    <select id="year" aria-label="year">
      <option value="1">2012</option>
      <option value="2">2013</option>
    </select>
</fieldset>