2023 Holiday Shipping Dates

If you are planning to order a Mail Order Mystery as a holiday gift we want to help you time its arrival.

There are two ways to have your mystery experience delivered. You can have it packed up all together and shipped in one box, or you can have the mystery sent as separate installments mailed once a week for six weeks.

ALL IN ONE BOX

All six installments will be packed together in a single shipment that is fully tracked. Every mystery we send out is personalized, so it does take some time from when you place your order to when it ships. These are the dates we recommend that you order by if you would like to have your mystery delivered before December 24. 

Please remember that these are only guidelines, based on the recommendations from the companies that deliver our packages. As is often the case during the holiday season, we expect there may be some delivery delays. Because of this we are unable to guarantee the date any mystery will arrive. Some mysteries may be delivered more quickly, but due to shipping delays beyond our control, it is possible that some packages may be delivered after December 24, especially outside of major cities.

SEND WEEKLY

We will mail your letters once a week for six weeks. We send mail every Thursday. You can pick which Thursday we send the first letter when you place your order. Please remember that this is the date we mail the letter, not the date that it will be delivered. We have no control over the speed at which letters travel through the postal system. And mail tends to travel much more slowly the closer we get to the holidays. There is no tracking information for lettermail, so we are not able to tell you where a letter is or when it will arrive.

If you want to time the first letter so it arrives just before Christmas, you should be prepared for the fact that it might not make it in time. If you order “Send Weekly” as a holiday gift we suggest you download the printable gift note to wrap up, and plan for the mystery to begin arriving shortly after Christmas or the beginning of the new year.

The following is not a guarantee, but our best estimate around when a first letter will be delivered, based on which date is chosen for the first letter to be mailed.

 ***Due to the high volume of orders, the earliest available date for the first letter to be mailed is currently January 11. Letters mailed on that day will arrive early in the new year.

A FEW MORE THINGS

IF YOU ARE ORDERING FOR MORE THAN ONE KID: Mail Order Mysteries are personalized and we can include the names of multiple children in the same household. When you place your order please make sure to enter the names of each child.

IF YOU ARE ORDERING MORE THAN ONE MYSTERY: Please place your orders separately. We require a lot of information to properly package each order and we are not able to collect all of the information we need for more than one mystery in the same order. Please note that shipping is charged per item, so you will be charged the same amount of shipping whether you place separate orders or one order with more than one mystery.

PLEASE INCLUDE FIRST AND LAST NAMES: Please enter kids’ first AND last names. This is especially important for the Treasure Hunt mystery, as kids find out they have a pirate relative with the same last name as them. Only include middle names if they are regularly used as part of kids’ names.

CHECK THE INFO: Please take a moment to make sure that all of the information in your order is correct, including shipping information and the spelling of kids’ names. We cannot make changes to an order once it is printed and packed.

Need help choosing a mystery? We've got a handy guide.

If you have any other questions please let us know. We hope we can help you add the joy and subtract the stress this holiday season!