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I live in northern NV, for local I mail 5-6 days ahead; middle of US 7-9 days ahead; east coast 10-12 days ahead. My sister lives in the Chicago suburbs and I very often mail cards to her and cards to my 3 nieces; sometimes 2 of the cards arrive together, another will arrive 2-3 days later, and the 4th card can take almost 2 weeks to get there. And the cards are identical except for different pattern papers! And they are mailed inside our local post office.
I find it's a guessing game... I also mail my Christmas cards the Monday after Thanksgiving... my other cards anywhere from 5 days to maybe 8 days ahead, whether local or not. One family who only lives about 15 miles from me don't get their cards for nearly 2 weeks. The postal system has been so horrible probably since the early pandemic , I just don't trust or rely on it. I had a friend who would mail me letters or cards and I'd have to pay a few cents additional postage on them, yet when I'd mail her something it'd come back to me with the money due, and I'd have to pay it before mailing it back out. LOL
I try hard to get something mailed early, but I am usually late. It can take 5 days for a card to go across this city as the sorting takes place in Kansas City. So it leaves the city for a two hour drive, goes through sorting, to come back. Often it will take a detour further west as it gets loaded on the wrong truck. Nothing is fast anymore.
Central Texas here; we experienced astronomical growth after 2020, and our poor post offices just couldn't keep up....
For across-town cards, I give 7-10 days. For Arizona/Wyoming, or Wisconsin/Tennessee, I give 2-2.5 weeks, respectively. If I don't adhere to these timelines, my cards are almost always late.
I did have a Christmas card get lost one year -- destination was 20 minutes down the road -- and it arrived 15 months later. That was wild. lol
Central Texas here; we experienced astronomical growth after 2020, and our poor post offices just couldn't keep up....
For across-town cards, I give 7-10 days. For Arizona/Wyoming, or Wisconsin/Tennessee, I give 2-2.5 weeks, respectively. If I don't adhere to these timelines, my cards are almost always late.
I did have a Christmas card get lost one year -- destination was 20 minutes down the road -- and it arrived 15 months later. That was wild. lol
I once got a Christmas card in April. The worst part was that there was a gift card in it and I had to write a thank you note to the sender explaining why I hadn't thanked her for the gift earlier!
__________________ Kathy FS852 SCS Member #241,587
I mail my cards at a minimum of 7days in advance. 10 days are more comfortable for me, but if there is a holiday then I mail 2 weeks in advance. My Christmas cards I mail out the day after Thanksgiving. Mail delivery is a very unpredictable thing. If I have more than one card going to the same address at the same time - I put each in their own envelope and then in a manilla envelope and mail it so that all will be delivered at the same time. I also text message when I mail out so the recipient can watch for it especially if it contains money or gift cards.
My stepson does not check his mail, (nor does his wife) and I have had it returned twice in the past because it wasn't picked up. I told my husband when it happens again then he and his family will be removed from my mailing list.
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I used to be ok with 4 days or so. But lately it seems like mail is taking 7+ days to reach its destination in the US. So I've been trying to mail things at least a week in advance.
Thanks so much for the insight ladies! It is unbelievable how the post office will sometimes send a card through with money owed and sometimes return the card. I feel for some of you where across town is 2 weeks or more. Thankfully mine usually arrive in about a week.
I gained a lot of information about cross country mailing.
__________________ Happy Stamping! Christine S. S2S $276.86
GREAT question! Everyone here is giving great suggestions thus far!
We have a known issue in our community (lawmakers even held a "town hall" with residents and the post office here a couple years ago), so I err on the side of caution. If it's within our general region (neighboring states), I mail 7 calendar days ahead of the date I want it to arrive (not too early but not past the recipient's birthday).
If it's further out, I pad on a day or two and be sure to be extra cognizant of the weekends (8-10 days, depending on how/when Sundays fall amid those days, how far away they are, and how early/late I recall hearing their card arrived the previous year).
I hope that helps!
__________________ Hugs & blessings, ~Chrissy
Jeremiah 29:11 Splitcoast Dirty Dozen Alumni | Proud FanClub member since 2017
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I remember when anything I mailed in a regular envelope would take 3 days, maaaybe 4, to mail from Colorado to NH. These days, I can't even mail a few states away from NH and expect it to get there in anything less than 5 days but yet my "old" brain still can only remember it taking the 3-4 days.
__________________ Brenda
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GREAT question! Everyone here is giving great suggestions thus far!
We have a known issue in our community (lawmakers even held a "town hall" with residents and the post office here a couple years ago), so I err on the side of caution. If it's within our general region (neighboring states), I mail 7 calendar days ahead of the date I want it to arrive (not too early but not past the recipient's birthday).
If it's further out, I pad on a day or two and be sure to be extra cognizant of the weekends (8-10 days, depending on how/when Sundays fall amid those days, how far away they are, and how early/late I recall hearing their card arrived the previous year).
I hope that helps!
Thank you for your input Chrissy. I did a little digging on the USPS website and they say up to 3 weeks or more for envelopes with handwritten addresses.
__________________ Happy Stamping! Christine S. S2S $276.86
I mail cards from Canada to Ireland. One time a card arrived in 6 days. Another time it took 32 days. My theory is that some Posties are sitting in a coffee shop, reading my mail before sending it onward. LOL
I live in northern NV, for local I mail 5-6 days ahead; middle of US 7-9 days ahead; east coast 10-12 days ahead. My sister lives in the Chicago suburbs and I very often mail cards to her and cards to my 3 nieces; sometimes 2 of the cards arrive together, another will arrive 2-3 days later, and the 4th card can take almost 2 weeks to get there. And the cards are identical except for different pattern papers! And they are mailed inside our local post office.
I find this to be true, as well. This is an interesting question as I have suddenly had to change my timeline. I live in SE AZ and I used to allow cards to my family on the east coast 5 days (not counting Sunday) and things arrived in time (but not always the same day in the same household). I allowed 4 days for those going to my old friends in the Pacific North West where we used to live, and 3 days for those in the mid west. I was used to one day to send things locally when I lived in Oregon, but here I have to allow 3 days for it to get to my neighbors as the cards are not delivered from either of our POs here, but first go to Phoenix, are processed and sent back to our POs and then delivered. So now I have upped my time line to be quite similar to yours.
This was just posted the other day just across the river from me.
Big pile of mail found in a vacant lot in St. Louis. To me this indicates there is not enough employees to handle local mail, so "someone" decided to dispose of the mail. Seriously I just can't....
__________________ The quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention is to sit down and look comfortable.
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This was just posted the other day just across the river from me.
Big pile of mail found in a vacant lot in St. Louis. To me this indicates there is not enough employees to handle local mail, so "someone" decided to dispose of the mail. Seriously I just can't....
If the package that is coming to me is being routed like regular mail, it is taking the tour of the distribution centers. This is from Lawn Fawn so it is coming from Southern California. The direct route would be straight across the country stopping through Kansas City then coming here to Columbia. Well, it has taken a detour. It hits Olathe Kansas, which is normal, then heads off to Nashville TN, then back to Olathe, then Kansas City, back to Olathe again, then Kansas City, and finally into Columbia. I should have it Monday unless it takes another detour. I think the cost of shipping packages has recently gone up. Maybe all of the detours is part of it. So when our cards take months to deliver, this might explain some of that.
If they are under 1/4" thickness, it takes 4 or 5 days to arrive. I'm in Ohio, and I add additional days for each U.S. time zone they go through, (yes it's silly, but it seems to work out) and holiday cards get mailed sometime *before* Thanksgiving.
When I mail them to friends in another country (the UK, France, Scotland, and parts of Canada) at least a month ahead.
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Mailing cards
