@porkandbeansboy I use to own an online business so I have quite a bit of experience in this area. I also shipped overseas a bit as well.
It depends on a few factors of course like location. Domestically... The holiday rush isn’t as bad as it use to be. The shipping companies have gotten quite of bit of experience over the last 20 years due to the internet making shipping very much more alive. Using non-government carriers (purple and brown) usually have a set date for delivery and 99% of the time, they are correct, even during the holidays. There is always a chance of a mishap even with guaranteed overnight and even right now, but it’s rare. During the last 2 weeks leading up to Christmas is most likely the time that you would need to worry about the most, but if anything is delayed, it wouldn’t be more that 2-3 days and that would also possibly involve a weekend.
On the post office domestically, which is what my business use to ship with the most, they put out a notice, notifying all shippers of when the last possible shipping day for everything to be received by Christmas with what shipping type you use from them. And this even includes mail going out all the way to the 22nd. While the post office in my experience is not as guaranteed as the others mentioned above, it still is pretty dang good with a few more delays than the others but really not that much. It’s pretty impressive. I mailed out 170 packages in one night on the 21st using first class flight and 97% were received by the 24th. Not bad for $3 .
Overseas
Overseas is a different story. Hardly anything is guaranteed unless it’s through brown or purple and that can be quite pricey. And even then, guaranteed isn’t really so. I would allow an extra 5 days or more to be safe during the rush of Christmas. Especially from about the 10th of December on.
Using regular mail service or receiving it through this method, It will almost definitely be a little delayed but not always by much. Customs will have their hands full with family sending and receiving presents to/from their loved ones and of course little gifts like what you’re hoping to receive. Plus whatever everyone else is ordering. Snail mail is as it sounds and doesn’t provide a guaranteed date for a reason, but it’s not what it once was and the name is a bit outdated. I would allow about 2 weeks just to be safe , additionally. If it’s needed or not, at least you’re well prepared and not disappointed.
Everything may run as usual and many of them indeed will , but it’s always better to be safe than sorry of course.
Customs
My personal opinion and from personal experience, I would think that packages will less likely to be seized because they are going to have an enormous amount of packages coming through. With overwhelming amount of gifts coming and going, they are going to be less likely to scrutinize each package as they merely will not have the time and believe it or not, who would want to be the one who seized little Billy’s new RC Car from
Russian Granny for Christmas? Lol.
Packages with TN are also, not entirely impossible, but harder to get lost even with the increased amount of packages sent or received during the holiday season.
—————————
This month (November ), you are still pretty safe to receive as normal. There is nothing really logically going to affect or delay shipments. It’s not going to be any different than most any other month other than December. Not many people are shipping Turkeys
. All kidding aside, December would be the time to watch the most. And this again would be near mid to late December and very early January. Not really past the first week of January and this is just from the run off leftovers that didn’t make the Christmas cut. I wouldn’t expect it to affect delivery service any earlier or any later than that, especially not this month (November) and
definitely not into February.
Good luck and best wishes!
first hang up , bumped 2 days and stuck on ‘ no Hope ‘ till after weekend 
hope it’s safe in a big bundle of package mayhem ... 
