Credit: Greg Goebel. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en Last year, the increased holiday demand for shipping caused by the pandemic caught the U.S. Postal Service by surprise. This year they say they are ready. They said they are bringing on 40,000 seasonal workers to help carry the extra load along with high-speed sorting machines. The Postal Service said the deadline for sending packages in time for Christmas is December 15th. The deadline for making sure cards arrive on time is December 17th.