December is the one month of the year when the mail system runs at capacity and has no slack to absorb your mistakes. A card that would sail through in March can sit for a week in the second half of December, and anything that gets pulled for inspection is effectively gone until January.
Which makes holiday mailing a planning problem more than a postage problem.
Buy the postage in autumn
Two reasons, and they compound.
The obvious one: supply tightens as the season approaches, and the designs worth putting on a holiday card sell out first. If you want a particular issue, buying in October or November is the difference between having it and settling.
The better one: rate adjustments have tended to land in January and July windows, and Forever stamps hold their value against increases. Stock bought before an adjustment carries the older price for as long as it lasts. Rate changes are published in advance by the Postal Regulatory Commission.
Get the format right before you buy
Holiday cards are exactly the mail most likely to attract a surcharge, and the reasons are all avoidable:
- Square envelopes — extremely common for cards, and non-machineable. They need a non-machineable surcharge stamp, every time.
- Rigid inserts — a photo card, an ornament, anything that stops the envelope being uniformly flexible pushes the piece out of automation.
- Weight — a card with a photo and a folded letter crosses one ounce more easily than people expect.
Weigh one finished card, including everything going inside it, before you calculate the run. The USPS Notice 123 charts carry the current figures.
Best deals on Forever stamps
Mail earlier than feels necessary
The instinct is to send cards close to the holiday so they arrive fresh. The system does not reward that.
Volume climbs steadily through the first half of December and peaks in the days before the holiday, when every additional piece is competing with every other. Mailing in the first week of December costs exactly the same and moves through a network that still has capacity.
For business cards in particular, arriving early is also better strategy — a card that lands before the deluge gets looked at.
The seasonal counterfeit problem
Holiday mail is the peak target for counterfeit postage, for the obvious reason: demand spikes, buyers are in a hurry, and a discount looks more attractive when the volume is large.
Genuine stamps carry phosphor tagging that high-speed sorting equipment checks on every piece, and December is when that equipment is running hardest. Untagged stock is pulled rather than delayed — and pulled in mid-December means the card arrives, if at all, well after the occasion it was sent for.
The signal remains the price. Genuine secondary-market sourcing supports a discount of roughly 10–20%. A flash sale well past that, timed to the season, is the season's characteristic scam.
A pre-season checklist
- October: choose designs, weigh a finished sample card, calculate postage per piece.
- November: buy the full quantity, including surcharge stamps for square envelopes. Pull five samples and check them.
- Early December: mail. Do not hold for a later date to feel more seasonal.
For fraud patterns, the USPS Office of Inspector General and the FTC; the governing regulations are in CFR Title 39. For a last-minute drop, the USPS location finder.
Where to buy
Full price from the USPS official store, or bulk at a defensible discount from a specialist such as Forever Stamp Center — ideally in autumn, while the designs are still in stock.
More on buying Forever stamps
- 👉 USPS Business Stamp Account Discount: A Guide to Compliance and Rules
- 👉 Sourcing Reputable Vendors for Office Supplies Postage Stamps Online Buys
- 👉 Postcard Postage Stamps Online Discount: Ensuring Delivery in 2026
USPS professional based in New York with over 12 years of experience in postal operations. She writes about Forever Stamps, offering practical guidance on safe purchasing and mailing practices while closely following USPS policy updates.
