You will have a few days less to play Santa this year after FedEx, the United States Postal Service, and United Parcel Service released their recommendations for mailing packages in time for Christmas.

USPS and FedEx are telling their customers to put their packages in the mail no later than December 15th if they intend to use standard ground shipping. FedEx freight economy packages have even less time as those need to be on the truck by December 9th. UPS has not released those kinds of specifics, only telling customers they can go online to calculate the cost and the time for domestic ground shipping.

Bea’s Ho-Made Products Manager Jeni Tveten says December 15th is likely the date they will tell customers to make sure they have their orders in if they want to send their jams and jellies anywhere in the lower 48 states. She expects there to be no major issues but warns customers that the mail carriers have increased their shipping rates and there could still be delays if those companies do not get the help they need to stock the trucks and deliver packages.

Mail carriers struggled to keep up with the volume of packages sent last holiday season because the pandemic forced many families to not celebrate in person. In the year since, FedEx and USPS have planned a number of infrastructure improvements to help them meet the demand which also could be affected by other disruptions in the supply chain.