FLORIDA — If out at the mailbox rises a clatter, household should not worry to see what’s the matter. The jingle and jangle are not the sounds of Santa getting any early start. Instead, it’s your neighborhood letter carrier making their rounds as early as 6:00 AM to ensure your packages are delivered right “in the nick of time.”

To keep our promise to deliver the best holiday for you and your loved ones, our carriers will be out making early morning deliveries in many communities throughout Florida.

As the hustle and bustle of the holiday season gains momentum, the Postal Service wants to keep up the pace. The fact is parcel volume is still high as online shopping continues to grow, and we want to make sure we meet our commitment to deliver every piece every day.

The holiday is always about people sending their best in greeting cards and gifts to extended family and friends. Customers can rest assured we will deliver our best in providing certainty and continuity during the holiday, and that means starting early in the morning.

For the 2021 peak season — the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day — the Postal Service (nationwide) will deliver more mail and packages to homes than any other shipper. It’s anticipated that between 850 million and 950 million packages will be delivered for the holidays. The total number of letters, cards and packages processed and delivered is estimated to be more than 12 billion.

The notion of the “busiest day” is a thing of Christmas past, due to the early online shopping. The forecast shows the busiest week will be December 13-18, when nearly 2.3 billion pieces of mail, including greeting cards and packages, will be processed and delivered the week of Dec. 13.

The Postal Service plans all year for the peak holiday season. This year’s preparations include leasing of 13 million square feet of additional space across more than 100 locations to handle the increase in the number of packages being mailed. The Postal Service has also converted 63,000 pre-career employees into career positions and hired more than 40,000 seasonal positions to help process and deliver the mail.

Between April and November, the Postal Service installed 112 new package sorting machines, reflecting part of the $40 billion of planned investments under the 10-year “Delivering for America” plan. Additionally, more than 50 package systems capable of sorting large packages are being deployed. Altogether, the new investments give the Postal Service the capacity to process an additional 4.5 million packages each day.

The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

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