The U.S. Postal Service said it expected Monday to be the busiest day of the year.
The USPS braced itself to ship more than 830 million letters and packages Monday, as people try and get gifts off to their loved ones before Christmas. While it's a 40 percent increase in mail volume over other days of the year, business is expected to be down this year because of the economy.
Also, fewer people are mailing out packages than in years past, said post office spokesman Roscoe Timberlake.
More people are doing their shipping online, so the lines at the post office are not as bad.
The deadline for parcel post shipping is Dec. 16. First class and priority mail can be sent through Dec. 21. After that, packages have to be sent via express mail service.
