Christmas To-Do List 2026

How to use this list

Christmas 2026 falls on a Friday, and the to-do list has two kinds of tasks: the ones with a hard deadline set by someone else, and the ones that only feel urgent. Do the first kind first. The hard deadlines are the mail: USPS recommends sending international First-Class Package and Priority Mail International by Wednesday, December 9, and domestic Ground Advantage and First-Class Mail to the lower 48 states by Thursday, December 17. Military mail to APO/FPO/DPO addresses has even earlier dates that depend on the ZIP code. Write those dates on your calendar now, then plan cards and mailed gifts backward from them. The rest of this list is grouped by job (decorating, cards, baking, the final week), and each task says roughly when to do it, so you can spread the work across the weekends after Thanksgiving instead of stacking it into the last few days. Two safety items are easy to skip and worth keeping: check light strings before they go up, and water a real tree every day, because a dry tree burns fast. Tick tasks as you go; your progress is saved in this browser, and Share sends the list to whoever is splitting the work with you.