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Home > Guides > Hanukkah mail timing 2026
Hanukkah 2026 runs from December 4 to December 12, which lands much earlier than Christmas. Treat November as your mailing month for cards: anything sent within the US or Canada needs roughly a week of cushion to arrive before the first candle, and holiday-season mail moves slower than the rest of the year. Gifts and parcels should go out earlier than cards.
Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 4 and ends on the evening of December 12, 2026. The date shifts every year because it follows the Hebrew calendar, a lunar calendar that runs about 11 days shorter than the Gregorian year. That is why Hanukkah can land anywhere from late November to late December, and why "send it with the Christmas cards" is bad advice in an early year like this one.
| Occasion (2026) | Dates | Mailing habit |
|---|---|---|
| Hanukkah | Evening of Dec 4 to evening of Dec 12 | Mail cards in November; gifts earlier still |
| Christmas | December 25 | The usual mid-December card rush |
Aim for the last stretch of November for cards within the US or Canada. That gives the card a comfortable cushion to reach the recipient before the first night, even with the Thanksgiving weekend sitting right in the middle of the window. USPS does not pick up or deliver on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, and Canada Post has no delivery on Christmas Day either, so a card mailed the week of the holiday is competing with the heaviest mail volume of the year.
Gifts need more lead time than cards because parcels are bulkier and the cross-border ones clear customs. If you are sending a Hanukkah gift between the US and Canada, customs forms are required on parcels, and that inspection adds days you cannot control. A simple rule: if the gift would need two weeks to feel safe at Christmas, send it a few weeks earlier for an early-December holiday. For gifts across eight nights, many families send one box ahead of the first night rather than eight separate shipments.
LetterAgent prints and mails your letter the same flow as any other job: you describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is printed and mailed. Because the letter enters the mail stream as first-class post, it follows normal delivery patterns, so the same cushion applies: get your Hanukkah message in during November and it should be sitting in the mailbox well before sundown on December 4.
Ready to mail it? Send your letter with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is printed and mailed.
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