December email calendar for Shopify stores
December 2026 email calendar for Shopify stores: Giving Tuesday, Hanukkah, Green Monday, shipping cutoffs, Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, with send ideas.
Key dates, December 2026
December is two months in one: gift buying up to the shipping cutoffs, then gift cards, Boxing Day and the quiet week before New Year.
Both halves are busy. In the US, Adobe counted $257.8 billion in online spend last holiday season, up 6.8%, with more than $4 billion spent online on each of 25 days (Adobe). Shopping didn't stop on December 25 either: Christmas Day had the highest share of mobile shopping of the season, at 66.5% of online sales (Adobe). People open new phones, spend gift cards and browse from the sofa.
Green Monday is the second Monday of December and Super Saturday is the last Saturday before Christmas. In 2026 both land in the same week as the USPS Ground Advantage date in the table, so the week of December 14 holds three of the month's deadlines for US gift stores. Plan those emails first.
| Key dates, December 2026 | 2026 | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Giving Tuesday | Tue Dec 1 | US |
| Hanukkah | Dec 4–12 (USPS) | Where relevant to your customers |
| Green Monday | Mon Dec 14 | US |
| USPS Ground Advantage send-by date | Thu Dec 17 (USPS) | US (contiguous) |
| Super Saturday | Sat Dec 19 | US |
| Christmas Eve | Thu Dec 24 | US, CA, UK, AU |
| Christmas | Fri Dec 25 | US, CA, UK, AU |
| Boxing Day | Sat Dec 26 | CA, UK, AU |
| Kwanzaa | Dec 26 – Jan 1 (USPS) | Where relevant to your customers |
| New Year's Eve | Thu Dec 31 | US, CA, UK, AU |
Subject lines for December
For gift buyers
For latecomers
For customers buying for themselves
For Boxing Day and the last week
- For the one who has everything
- Gifts under your price, all arriving before Christmas
- Hanukkah gifts, sent early this year
- No shipping needed: our gift card
- Still time? Here's exactly how much
- Something for you, after all that giving
- The gift card you got? Here's what to spend it on
- Boxing Day starts now
- Thank you for this year
- What we're making in the new year
Take it with you
Eight send ideas
1. Giving Tuesday. A cause you genuinely support. Skip it if you don't.
2. Gift guide by recipient. "For the one who has everything."
3. Hanukkah gifts. Early this year. Only if your customers celebrate.
4. Shipping dates. All the dates in one email. See holiday shipping cutoff emails.
5. Last day for standard shipping. The clearest deadline of the season, and a real one, so you can say it plainly.
6. Gift cards. For everyone who missed the cutoff.
7. Boxing Day. For Canadian, UK and Australian customers.
8. Year in review / thank you. No offer. Sets up January.
The week after Christmas
Returns arrive in this week, so plan for them. Adobe found that returns were up 4.7% from December 26 to 31, and 1 out of every 7 returns of the season happened in that stretch (Adobe). Two emails help:
- A "getting started" email for anyone who bought in the last six weeks: how to use it, care for it, or get the size right. Customers who know how to use a product have one less reason to send it back.
- An exchange-first message in your returns flow: offer a size swap or store credit before a refund, and make it easy.
What December is also for
- Post-purchase emails for all the new customers from November. Teach them to use what they bought. See the post-purchase flow.
- Separating gift buyers from people buying for themselves. They need different emails in January.
- Asking for reviews at the right time. Someone who received a gift on December 25 can review it in January, not before. Time your review requests from delivery, not from the order.
Plan it with Tilly
The email calendar treats Christmas as a gift moment, so it plans three sends for it: a teaser 10 days before (Tuesday, December 15, 2026), the main send 5 days before (Sunday, December 20, 2026) and a last call 2 days before (Wednesday, December 23, 2026). Boxing Day is a sale moment, with an early-access send on Saturday, December 19, 2026 and the main send on Saturday, December 26, 2026. US stores also get Giving Tuesday, Green Monday, Super Saturday, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. The calendar does not hold carrier shipping cutoffs, so make sure the Christmas sends promise only what your shipping can deliver. Hanukkah is left out on purpose: a wrong date for a religious holiday is worse than a missing one, so add that email yourself if your customers celebrate it.
Sources
- 2026 Holiday Shipping Deadlines (USPS), checked 1 October 2026
- Adobe: Holiday Shopping Season Drove a Record $257.8 Billion Online (Adobe), checked 1 October 2026
See this on your own store
Paste your store URL. The first pass takes about a minute and needs no account. Save a card (nothing is charged) and Tilly reads the whole store and works out who buys from you.