Holiday Hours and Shipping Schedule
Since we're an online business, we rely heavily on our shipping providers. The increase in online shopping during holidays puts a heavy strain on shipping companies. The effects are felt by everyone, primarily in the form of extended delivery windows and unanticipated delays. We compiled this Holiday Shipping Guide to help give you a better idea of the processing & shipping times during busy holiday periods.
If you would like to see our normal non-holiday schedule, check out our standard Shipping Policy.
Processing Times
While we can’t control the shipping delays, we can control our processing times. We have continued to focus on perfecting our processing times. We have improved greatly in this area, and we want to maintain this momentum through the hectic holiday seasons. We will still ship packages every day except for the listed holidays below and Sunday.
Orders placed Saturday afternoon CST through Sunday are the first to be processed on Monday morning. We suggest ordering as soon as possible to get your package to our carriers quickly. We are doing everything we can to offset some of the shipping delays by improving our processing times.
Shipping Providers
Our shipping providers are the United States Postal Service (USPS) United Parcel Service (UPS). During the holidays, we continue offering these shipping options, Priority, Priority Express with USPS, and Ground, 2nd Day Air, and Next Day Air with UPS. The expected delivery dates have been extended during this time period, so you can no longer count on these as a 2 day delivery and Express as Next Day. As a general rule, the current delivery time has been extended by 1-2 days. On average, Priority and 2nd day has 3-day delivery and Express and Next day has 2-day. This can fluctuate depending on several factors including the current shipping volume for your local post office.
Express Shipping
USPS Express and UPS Next Day shipping does not guarantee overnight delivery, even outside of the holiday season. A better way of explaining Express shipping is that it upgrades Priority shipping to get your package delivered one day faster. During standard shipping times (non-holiday), a majority of Priority packages are delivered in 2 days, so a majority of Express packages are delivered Next Day.
During the holiday shipping period, a majority of Priority packages are delivered in 3-4 days, so a majority of Express packages are delivered in 2-3 days. These estimates can vary based on the current shipping volume and where the packages are being shipped to.
USPS has stated that post offices will be closed, but Express packages WILL be delivered on Christmas and New Year’s Day. They also placed a disclaimer on their site stating it is not guaranteed.
If you have an Express package that is delayed, please contact us. We will examine the situation and take appropriate action.
Federal Holidays
USPS and UPS are closed on these holidays:
January 1st | New Year's Day |
January 20th | Martin Luther King, Jr's Birthday |
February 17th | Washington's Birthday (Presidents Day) |
May 25th | Memorial Day |
July 4th* | Independence Day |
September 7th | Labor Day |
October 12th | Columbus Day |
November 11th | Veterans Day |
November 26th | Thanksgiving Day |
December 25th | Christmas Day |
July 4th* will be on a Saturday this year and will be observed on July 3rd by our shipping providers and will be closed on July 3rd.
Christmas Cutoff Dates
Every year, USPS and UPS release their suggested “ship by” dates for expected delivery by Christmas. They anticipate that packages shipped on/before the dates provided will arrive before Christmas.
December 20th: USPS Express & UPS 2nd Day Air
December 21st: USPS Priority
December 23rd: UPS Next Day Air
It is important to remember that the suggested dates are for expected delivery. Packages can still experience delays that push back delivery, but a majority of packages will make it on time. Historically, we have experienced that around 90% of packages shipped on these dates will be delivered before Christmas. The unlucky 10% were concentrated between a few local post offices in the N.E. that experienced a huge spike in volume. You should always order as soon as possible, and this is especially true with these “ship by” dates.
Lone Goose Bakery Holiday Hours
We close during certain holidays in order to give ourselves time to enjoy with our families. These holidays include Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. We make an effort to remain open and operating as much as possible during holiday periods, in order to minimize delays for our customers. The day before and after major holidays, if they are business days, our order cutoff time is noon CST.
Thanksgiving
Day Before: Short business hours, cut off at 12 p.m. CST.
Thanksgiving Day: Closed
Day After: Short business hours, cut off at 12 p.m. CST.
Christmas
Christmas Eve: Short business hours, cut off at 12 p.m. CST.
Christmas Day: Closed
Day After: Short business hours, cut off at 12 p.m. CST.
New Year's
New Year's Eve: Short business hours, cut off at 12 p.m. CST.
New Year's Day: Closed