The U.S. Postal Service is ready for the annual holiday rush of packages. Spokesperson Sean Hargadon says between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day they expect 15 billion pieces of mail and 900 million packages to be delivered.
He says with that volume, the public should be aware of shipping dates. He says the first deadline is not that far off...
"If you have someone in the military, APO, FPO, DPO addresses, your first deadline is December 4. That's for priority mail, first-class mail. After that, every week there's a new deadline. December 11, December 18 for those. So what we want people to do and if you have someone in the military and you're sending something overseas get to the Post Office get the process started by December 4 so you can get it there on time...."
The first-class mail deadline is December 20. The deadline for Priority Mail Express is December 22. Hargadon says having your package properly prepared speeds the process. He says take all the old writing off an old box. He says their machines can pick up the wrong addresses on a box and send it to the wrong place...
"...When you pack something, you want to pack it tight inside. Make sure it's tight in there using different wraps or even paper crumpled up. When you do the address, make sure you put it in capital letters, the name, where it's going to, the address, the zip cod. Zip Code is extremely important. Also have a return address on the box. It doesn't hurt to have the return address in the box in case something happens along the way....."
The Postal Service estimates that more than 100 million customers will visit the services website between Thanksgiving and New Year's. The Service has replaced the designation of the 'busiest day of the year' with the busiest time which is after December 10 to Christmas Day.
More information is available at usps.com
