It’s peak season for the United States Postal Service, and the organization is holiday ready. A whopping 41,000 part-time employees around the country were converted to full-time positions this year, and an additional 28,000 employees have been hired on a seasonal basis. With so many hands at work, there’s no reason why your packages and cards shouldn’t arrive to your friends and families on time.
Mark Inglett, Strategic Communications Specialist for the USPS, gave KLIN News a list of deadlines residents should adhere to if they want their mailed goods to arrive around the mainland by Christmas Eve.
“Christmas cards, things such as that, first-class mail, that’s December the 17th,” said Inglett. “For your packages that are priority mail, that’s the 19th. And then December 23rd is for priority express, but let’s get a head start, let’s get those things in the mail now. That way, you can relax and enjoy your holiday.”
Inglett gave additional tips for mailing gifts and says it would be best not to wrap them, but if you need to, you certainly can.
“If you’re going to put wrapping paper on those packages, that’s great,” Inglett said. “But enclose it inside a nice, secure, priority mailbox. That way, it’s got a clean label, it can be secured and taped properly, and also, the opportunity for that address not smearing or tearing off is much less. We want to put it in a priority mail package to make sure it’s secure.”