SAN DIEGO — If you're still waiting to mail out that last-minute Christmas gift, time is quickly running out.
CBS 8 had the opportunity to go behind the scenes to show you the inner workings of the U.S. Postal Service's extremely busy processing center here in San Diego.
This time of year is the 'Super Bowl' for the United States Postal Service, processing more than ten billion pieces of mail so far this holiday season, and counting.
It is a Herculean effort that USPS workers have been gearing up for over the past year.
"During this time of the year, we see about double to triple the amount of mail compared to the rest of the year," said Warren Burton, program manager for the U.S. Postal Service.
The USPS here in San Diego processes millions of pieces of mail, from letters and cards to packages, every single day in the run-up to the holidays.
Inside the U.S. Postal Service's Processing and Distribution Center, San Diego County's mail is taken in, sorted, and processed: up to 30,000 pieces of mail an hour. That mail is then prepared for delivery to destinations throughout the rest of the county and the world.
You could call it 'organized chaos.'
"During the holiday season, because we do prepare a year in advance, this really is organized chaos, in the sense that everything has a purpose," said Mayra Elena-Hernandez, spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service. "Everything is on schedule, so that we can make the holidays happen for everybody, and we can deliver!"
It's an operation that requires the hard work of over a thousand employees in the main processing center in Carmel Mountain, as well as thousands of mail carriers and other postal workers throughout the county.
"There is a whole operation, a whole army of people who are behind that one piece of mail," said Elena-Hernandez.
Employees here are around the clock, and often overtime, just to make sure the holidays are delivered on time.
"Whether it be a carrier out on the street or a mail processor inside, running double or triple the volume they normally do the other 11 months of the year," Burton added.
Sarah Oney, now a spokesperson for the USPS, worked as a mail carrier for years.
"It is definitely a challenge making sure that those packages get to the customers, all those Christmas cards get to the customers on time," she said.
Keep in mind: If you still have a Christmas gift to mail out, time is running out.
The deadline for three-day priority mail is Wednesday, and two-day express is Thursday.
Also, if you're packing something up to ship out, take some extra time to secure it both inside and out: your postal workers will thank you.
"Don't skimp on tape," Burton told CBS 8, "and when you pack whatever's inside, the goal is to not have it shake."
While most of us have this upcoming holiday weekend off, U.S. Postal Service workers will be out there delivering holiday mail as late as Christmas Day.