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In this guide
A gift ordered in the last two weeks before a holiday is bought on the maker's calendar, not the giver's. The maker decides how many business days pass before a box leaves the warehouse, which carrier tiers exist and what they cost, whether the order is big enough to ship free, and how long the recipient has to return it if the size or color is wrong. All four figures are on the shipping and refund pages, and a late order should start there.
This guide reads those pages for four products from the site's catalog and turns them into a count of business days between clicking order and a box on a doorstep. The products are unrelated, a board game, a paint set, a box of glasses and a pair of cocktail tins, which is the point: the calendar arithmetic is the same whatever is inside, and the maker that publishes an actual cutoff time beats the one that publishes a promise.
The things in this guide
A closer look at the products, who they may suit, and what to check before buying.
Set of Koriko Weighted Shaking Tins, Stainless Steel
Cocktail Kingdom's FAQ is the only page here with a clock on it: orders on 2 Day or Standard Overnight are processed the same day if received by 12:00 PM Eastern, so the $26.98 Koriko set can leave New York the day it is ordered and reach most of the country the next business day.
Before you buy: There is no free shipping at any order size and no coupon, so the overnight tier is paid in full on top of $26.98. Returns run 60 days from receipt but need an RMA first and the return postage is the sender's.
Price checked September 11, 2026. Retailer prices can change.
Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Paint 10 Color Set, Celebrations (7510)
Plaid lists the ten-bottle FolkArt Celebrations set at $15.99 regular, quotes 3 business days for express and 4 for expedited, so a gift at that price ordered on a Monday can arrive by Thursday, and any of the ten 2 oz colors can be replaced from the same store later.
Before you buy: Ground is quoted at 10 to 14 business days, so the default tier can miss a holiday ordered three weeks out. Express and expedited need a signature at the door, free shipping starts at $60, and returns allow 30 days from purchase with the receipt.
Price checked October 4, 2026. Retailer prices can change.
Le Picardie Clear Glass Tumbler, 8.375 oz / 25 cl, Set of 6
Duralex USA states 1 to 3 business days of processing and 2 to 4 business days of transit by UPS Ground for the $28 set of six 25 cl Picardie tumblers, which is the clearest door-to-door estimate of the four.
Before you buy: Free shipping starts at $120, apartment deliveries need a signature, and a return in the 30 days that follow delivery loses a 10 percent restocking fee plus a $10 label, so a $28 set refunds about $15.
Price checked September 11, 2026. Retailer prices can change.Wingspan (base game, current printing with swift-start pack)
Stonemaier sells Wingspan at $55 against a $65 regular price, charges a flat $10 for US shipping and says orders leave within one week, which makes the total predictable if not fast.
Before you buy: The same page says holiday orders take longer, no transit time is quoted, free shipping starts at $125, and the returns text is one sentence asking buyers to email quickly if they ordered in error, so a wrong gift has no return route.
Price checked September 11, 2026. Retailer prices can change.Four numbers decide a late order, and the price is not one of them
A shipping page lists a processing time, which is how long the maker takes to hand a box to a carrier; a list of carrier tiers with their quoted transit; a threshold above which postage is waived; and, on the refund page next to it, the window and the fees for sending the gift back. A late order lives or dies on the first two, pays for the third, and is rescued by the fourth when the gift is wrong.
Makers write these pages very differently. One quotes a clock time after which an order waits until tomorrow, one quotes ranges in business days for each tier, one quotes a window for processing and another for transit, and one quotes a week and warns that December is slower. Ranking the four products here by how precisely their maker answers the calendar question turns out to be a ranking of how safely each can be ordered late.
The tins: the one maker with a clock on the page
Cocktail Kingdom lists the stainless Koriko set at $26.98 and, in its FAQ, states that most orders process in one to two business days but that orders placed with 2 Day or Standard Overnight service are processed the same day if received by 12:00 PM Eastern. Processing happens on business days only, weekend orders begin on Monday, and the tiers are FedEx Ground, FedEx 2 Day and FedEx Standard Overnight. That noon line is the only true cutoff among the four makers, and it makes the tins the last of the four that can be ordered with a straight face.
The cost of that certainty is on the same page. Cocktail Kingdom offers no free shipping at any order size and no coupons, so the overnight tier is paid in full on a $27 item. Returns are generous on paper, 60 days from the day the package arrives, but they require an RMA by email or phone, unused condition with the maker's packaging intact, and the sender pays the postage; there are no exchanges, only a refund and a new order. For a giver who is late and certain of the gift, this is the safest order here. For one who is late and unsure, the 60 days help only if the recipient never puts ice in the tin.
The paint set: cheapest gift, slowest default, fastest paid tier
Plaid sells the FolkArt Celebrations set, ten 2 oz bottles in eight satin shades and two metallics, silver and gold, at $15.99 on its Regular Price line, with $11.19 shown under a sitewide sale the page dates to 10/8/2026. Its shipping policy quotes ground delivery at 10 to 14 business days from the order, expedited at 4 business days and express at 3, with every expedited or express parcel needing a signature at delivery, no exceptions. Orders process Monday through Friday between 8 and 5 Eastern, nothing is backordered, and Plaid does not ship outside the US.
Read as a calendar, the default tier is the trap: three calendar weeks is not enough margin for a ground order placed after Thanksgiving. The paid tiers fix that, but they add postage that can exceed the price of the paint, and the signature rule means someone must be home or the box goes back to the depot. Free shipping begins at $60, or $40 for Plaid Points members, which one ten-bottle paint set does not approach on its own. Returns are 30 days from purchase with the receipt, for the product price only, so a wrong gift refunds the paint and none of the express fee that got it there on time.
The glasses: a published transit window and a signature for apartments
Duralex USA's page for the Picardie set of six, $28 in the 25 cl size, carries the clearest door-to-door figures of the four. In-stock orders process in 1 to 3 business days, Monday through Friday excluding major holidays, and delivery follows in 2 to 4 business days once tracking is issued, by UPS Ground with USPS in select cases. Delivery is to the continental US only, never to a PO box, and a signature is required for any order over $200 or any order going to an apartment address.
That rule matters for a gift sent straight to the recipient: glasses going to an apartment will not be left at the door. The $120 postage threshold is more than four sets of this size, so a single set pays shipping. Returns must be requested and received in the 30 days that follow delivery, unused and in the original box; an approved return loses a 10 percent restocking fee plus $10 for the prepaid label, leaving about $15.20 back on $28. Broken glass is handled separately with a replacement or credit, and the pieces need not be mailed back unless Duralex asks, so the risk left is a change of mind, at $12.80.
The game: a promise without a clock, and no return route
Stonemaier's US webstore lists Wingspan at $55 against a $65 regular price, in a 2.4 kg box, and charges a flat $10 for US shipping with the fee waived above $125, or $100 for members of its Champion program. Its shipping page says orders leave within one week unless the store header says otherwise, and that preorders and holiday shipping take longer because its fulfillment centers receive a flood of orders at once. Transit after dispatch is not quoted; the carrier is UPS, FedEx or USPS chosen by address.
So the game is the one product here with a fixed postage figure and no fixed calendar. A week to dispatch plus an unquoted ground transit is fine in November and a gamble in the third week of December, and Stonemaier's page admits as much. The returns text is a single sentence asking buyers who ordered in error to email as soon as possible, which means there is no window for a recipient who already owns the game or wanted a different one. Ordered early, it is the simplest purchase of the four; ordered late, it is the one whose maker has told you, in writing, that the date is not promised.
The four calendars in business days
Counting only what each maker publishes, the Koriko tins can be ordered on a business day before noon Eastern and shipped that day, so an overnight order placed on a Tuesday is a Wednesday delivery. The FolkArt set is 3 business days on express or 4 on expedited from the order, and 10 to 14 on ground. The Duralex set is 1 to 3 business days of processing plus 2 to 4 of transit, so 3 to 7 in total. Wingspan is up to a week to dispatch, more in December, plus a transit figure Stonemaier does not publish.
Put against a holiday on a fixed date, those figures sort the four into an order. Ten business days out, all four are plausible. Five out, the game is a gamble and the paint set needs a paid tier. Two out, only the tins, on a paid overnight service ordered before noon, and the paint set on express with someone home to sign are still on the table. The postage thresholds, $120, $125 and $60, are all far above any one of these gifts, so a late single-item order pays shipping everywhere except at Cocktail Kingdom, where it pays shipping always. The refund windows run 60, 30, 30 and zero days, in the same order the delivery certainty runs.
When the shipping page should stop the order
Skip a direct-from-maker order when the recipient's address is the problem, not the calendar. An apartment that needs a signature for glasses, a house where nobody is home for an express parcel, or an address outside the continental US turns every figure here into a guess, and a local shop with the same item in stock is the better late option even at a higher price.
Skip the late order entirely when the gift might be wrong. The game has no return route, the paint refunds its price and not its express fee, the glasses lose $12.80 on the way back, and the tins are only returnable if never used. A late gift that also needs to be exchanged has run out of calendar twice. In that case buy something the recipient can choose for themselves, or accept that the gift arrives after the day and say so.
How we put this together
Built from the product pages and listings below, without test scores or results we have not measured. Specifications and prices change, so check the original page for the exact model, current price, delivery, and returns.
- Stonemaier Games webstore: Wingspan (opens in a new tab)
- Stonemaier Games webstore: Shipping Information (opens in a new tab)
- Stonemaier Games webstore: Refund policy (opens in a new tab)
- Plaid: FolkArt Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Paint 10 Color Set, Celebrations (7510) (opens in a new tab)
- Plaid: Shipping Policy (opens in a new tab)
- Plaid: Return Policy (opens in a new tab)
- Duralex USA: Le Picardie Clear Glass Tumbler, Set of 6 (opens in a new tab)
- Cocktail Kingdom: Set of Koriko Weighted Shaking Tins, Stainless Steel (opens in a new tab)
- Cocktail Kingdom: FAQ (opens in a new tab)
- Cocktail Kingdom: Refund policy (opens in a new tab)
