COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’s the busiest time of year for the United States Postal Service.
This holiday season they’re planning to ship close to 950 million packages between Thanksgiving through New Year's Day.
This year, Audrone Biknevicius is beating the rush by shipping her items early.
“If I could drive it would drive it, but I can't do that. One’s going out to Oregon and the other one's going to Colorado,” she said.
Biknevicius shipped several packages on Monday at her local post office to make sure they arrive early.
“It's my sister's grandkids mostly, that's all I got left,” said Biknevicius.
Her packages are headed next to the USPS Processing and Distribution Plant in Columbus.
Employees are working to unload, pack, and ship out items on time for the holidays.
"It's our prime time, it's the NBA Playoffs for us right now,” said Nikki Lowe, who’s the Columbus Acting Senior Plant Manager. She said nationwide, the company has hired 40,000 seasonal employees to keep them from suffering from supply shortages.
Lowe said the best way to avoid delays is to get your packages in by Dec.16.
“That’s pretty much the finalized date to guarantee it's there by Christmas,” said Lowe.
"They'll probably miss it by a day or two, but I still have time even if I miss it by a couple of days, I still got a couple of weeks before Christmas,” said Biknevicius.