Holi-DATES

Believe it or not, it is past time to start thinking about holiday mailings in some cases. Here's a run-down of U.S.P.S. mailing deadlines for 2018.

• Nov. 6      – APO/FPO/DPO (all ZIP Codes) USPS Retail Ground®
• Dec. 4      – APO/FPO/DPO (ZIP Code 093 only) Priority Mail® and First-Class Mail®
• Dec. 11    – APO/FPO/DPO (all other ZIP Codes) Priority Mail and First-Class Mail
• Dec. 14    – USPS Retail Ground
• Dec. 18    – APO/FPO/DPO (except ZIP Code 093) USPS Priority Mail Express®
• Dec. 20    – First-Class Mail (including greeting cards)
• Dec. 20    – First-class packages (up to 15.99 ounces)
• Dec. 20   –  Hawaii to mainland Priority Mail and First-Class Mail
• Dec. 20    – Priority Mail
• Dec. 20    – Alaska to mainland Priority Mail and First-Class Mail
• Dec. 22    – Alaska to mainland Priority Mail Express
• Dec. 22    – Hawaii to mainland Priority Mail Express
• Dec. 22    – Priority Mail Express

Of course, it's not a guarantee, but they do their best...even when that means delivering a card almost a year late. Your best bet is to mail before those deadlines. According to the U.S.P.S. News Room bulletin, "the Postal Service expects to deliver nearly 200 million packages per week during these [first] two weeks [of December]. The week of Dec. 17-23 is predicted to be the busiest mailing, shipping and delivery week. During this week alone, the Postal Service expects to process and deliver nearly 3 billion pieces of First-Class Mail, including greeting cards."

Here's a link to Canada Post holiday deadlines. Here's one for Royal Mail. Australia Post was less forthcoming with this info. Best I found was this link from 2017 with a bunch of videos and how Australian kids can send letters to Santa. And then I remembered that ya'll have Google too. Please share your  country's postal deadlines in the comments below!

 

Comments

[Eunice]

Have you seen the UK's Christmas stamps? They all feature red post boxes and people posting cards. Lovely!

[Julie]

Irish mailing dates (An Post) are printed in the Christmas stamp booklet (very handy):

Destination - last date for letters - last date for parcels
Ireland - 20 Dec - 20 Dec
Northern Ireland - 19 Dec - 19 Dec
Great Britain - 18 Dec - 18 Dec
Europe - 18 Dec - 12 Dec
USA - 10 Dec - 07 Dec
Rest of World - 07 Dec - 07 Dec

[Donovan Beeson]

Thanks for that!

[Donovan Beeson]

I will check them out!