As COVID-19 continues to surge, many families are expected to be celebrating the holiday season virtually this year.

Because of this, officials from the United States Postal Service are encouraging those who are shipping presents to loved ones to send them off as early as possible.

“This has been an extraordinary year of unprecedented challenges given the COVID-19 pandemic and the Postal Service is expecting significant volume increases which are difficult to predict,” a news release read. 

People needing to ship a package to a loved one by Dec. 25 using ground service must mail it by Dec. 15, according to the release. However, those using priority shipping can send their packages on Dec. 23, and still have them reach the final destination on Christmas Day. 

Officials said that the two weeks before Christmas are the busiest of delivering days of the year and USPS has 644,000 workers dedicated to making sure every package arrives on time.

Customers wanting to skip the expected long lines at the post office can go online and use USPS’ Click-N-Ship feature.