Millions expected to visit post office on Dec. 15, busiest shipping day of year

IRVINE, Calif. (KABC) -- Dec. 15 is the busiest shipping and mailing day of the year -- about six million customers were expected to visit a post office on Monday.

The U.S. Postal Service expects customers to post 640 million cards, letters and packages on this day, a 22-percent increase over the average daily volume of 523 million pieces of mail.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, the Postal Service expects to deliver 15.5 billion cards, letters and packages.

At the FedEx facility in Irvine, workers were sorting packages before loading them into more than 200 trucks.

FedEx spokesman Shea Leordeanu says 22.6 million packages were expected to flow through their worldwide network Monday.

Officials say FedEx is shipping three times more packages this holiday season compared to this time 10 years ago.

"Our increases are mainly driven by e-commerce," Leordeanu said. "As more and more people go online to complete their holiday orders, those packages are flowing into our network. The FedEx Ground service, you have until Wednesday, Dec. 17 -- that's the guaranteed day that if you give it to us we'll still get it under your Christmas tree."

If no one's home when a package arrives, courier Tami Wells says she tries to find a hiding spot for it "that way people don't steal them," she said.

The company also offers a free service called FedEx Delivery Manager where people can sign up online to give detailed instructions for couriers.

"Very specific instructions such as leave it behind my grill or leave it behind a big planter," Leordeanu said.

The latest date to ship to make it in time before Christmas is Dec. 23 through FedEx Express.

"Mother Nature always holds the wildcard so we would encourage everybody to ship early," Leordeanu said.

Watch Eileen Frere's report above from Eyewitness News.